“Dat house w’at Vieumaite gi’ me his own se’f, out his own mout’, w’en he gi’ me my freedom! All wrote down en règle befo’ de cote! Bon dieu Seigneur, w’at dey talkin’ ’bout!”
Tante Cat’rinette stood in the of her home, resting a gaunt black hand against the jamb. In the other hand she held her corn-cob pipe. She was a tall, large-boned woman of a pronounced Congo type. The house in question had been substantial enough in its time. It contained four rooms: the lower two of brick, the upper ones of . A dilapidated 370gallery projected from the upper story and over the narrow banquette, to the of passers-by.
“I don’t think I ever heard why the property was given to you in the first place, Tante Cat’rinette,” observed Lawyer Paxton, who had stopped in passing, as so many others did, to talk the matter over with the old negress. The affair was attracting some attention in town, and its development was being watched with a good deal of interest. Tante Cat’rinette asked nothing better than to satisfy the lawyer’s curiosity.
“Vieumaite all time say. Cat’rinette wort’ gole to ’im; de way I make dem nigga’ walk chalk. But,” she continued, with recovered seriousness, “w’en I nuss ’is li’le w’at all de doctor’ ’low it ’s goin’ die, an’ I make it well, me, Vieumaite, he can’t do ’nough, him. He name’ dat li’le gal Cat’rine fo’ me. Das Miss Kitty w’at marry Miché Raymond yon’ by Gran’ Eco’. Den he gi’ me my freedom; he got plenty slave’, him; one don’ count in his pocket. An’ he gi’ me dat house w’at I’m stan’in’ in de do’; he got plenty house’ an’ lan’, him. Now dey want pay me 371t’ousan’ dolla’, w’at I don’ axen’ fo’, an’ tu’n me out dat house! I waitin’ fo’ ’em, Miché Paxtone,” and a wicked gleam shot into the woman’s small, dusky eyes. “I got my grine fine. Fus’ man w’at touch Cat’rinette fo’ tu’n her out dat house, he git ’is head bus’ like I bus’ a gode.”
“Dat’s nice day, ainty, Miché Paxtone? Fine wedda fo’ dry my close.” Upon the gallery above hung an array of shirts, which gleamed white in the sunshine, and flapped in the breeze.
The spectacle of Tante Cat’rinette defying the authorities was one which offered much diversion to the children of the neighborhood. They played numberless at her expense; daily serving upon her notices to be to the last degree official. One youngster, in a moment of inspiration, composed a couplet, which they recited, sang, shouted at all hours, beneath her windows.
“Tante Cat’rinette, she go in town;
Wen she come back, her house pull’ down.”
So ran the production. She heard it many times during the day, but, far from offending her, she accepted it as a warning,—a prediction, 372as it were,—and she took not to offer to fate the conditions for its fulfillment. She no longer quitted her house even for a moment, so great was her fear and so firm her belief that the town authorities were lying in wait to possess themselves of it. She would not cross the street to visit a neighbor. She passers-by and pressed them into service to do her errands and small shopping. She grew distrustful and suspicious, ever on the alert to a plot in the most innocent endeavor to induce her to leave the house.
One morning, as Tante Cat’rinette was hanging out her latest of washing, Eusèbe, a “free mulatto” from Red River, stopped his beneath her gallery.
“Hé, Tante Cat’rinette!” he called up to her.
She turned to the railing just as she was, in her bare arms and neck that gleamed ebony-like against the unbleached cotton of her chemise. A coarse skirt was fastened about her waist, and a string of many-colored knotted around her throat. She held her smoking pipe between her yellow teeth.
373“How you all come on, Miché Eusèbe?” she questioned, pleasantly.
“We all middlin’, Tante Cat’rinette. But Miss Kitty, she putty bad off out yon’a. I see Mista Raymond dis mo’nin’ w’en I pass by his house; he say look like de feva don’ wan’ to quit ’er. She been axen’ fo’ you all t’rough de night. He ’low he reckon I betta tell you. Nice wedda we got fo’ plantin’, Tante Cat’rinette.”
“Nice wedda fo’ lies, Miché Eusèbe,” and she contemptuously down upon the banquette. She turned away without noticing the man further, and proceeded to hang one of Lawyer Paxton’s fine shirts upon the line.
“She been axen’ fo’ you all t’rough de night.”
Somehow Tante Cat’rinette could not get that refrain out of her head. She would not willingly believe that Eusèbe had spoken the truth, but— “She been axen fo’ you all t’rough de night—all t’rough de night.” The words kept ringing in her ears, as she came and went about her daily tasks. But by degrees she dismissed Eusèbe and his message 374from her mind. It was Miss Kitty’s voice that she could hear in fancy following her, calling out through the night, “W’ere Tante Cat’rinette? W’y Tante Cat’rinette don’ come? W’y she don’ come—w’y she don’ come?”
All day the woman muttered and to herself in her Creole ; council of “Vieumaite,” as she always did in her troubles. Tante Cat’rinette’s religion was peculiarly her own; she turned to heaven with her , it is true, but she felt that there was no one in Paradise with whom she was quite so well acquainted as with “Vieumaite.”
Late in the afternoon she went and stood on her doorstep, and looked uneasily and anxiously out upon the almost street. When a little girl came walking by,—a sweet child with a frank and innocent face, upon whose word she knew she could rely,—Tante Cat’rinette invited her to enter.
“Come yere see Tante Cat’rinette, Lolo. It’s long time you en’t come see Tante Cat’rine; you gittin’ proud.” She made the little one 375sit down, and offered her a couple of cookies, which the child accepted with pretty avidity.
“You putty good li’le gal, you, Lolo. You keep on go all de time?”
“Oh, yes. I’m goin’ make my firs’ communion firs’ of May, Tante Cat’rinette.” A dog-eared catechism was sticking out of Lolo’s pocket.
“Das right; be good li’le gal. Mine yo’ maman ev’t’ing she say; an’ neva tell no story. It’s nuttin’ bad in dis worl’ like tellin’ lies. You know Eusèbe?”
“Eusèbe?”
“Yas; dat li’le ole Red River free m’latto. Uh, uh! dat one man w’at tell lies, yas! He come tell me Miss Kitty down sick yon’a. You ev’ yeard such big story like dat, Lolo?”
The child looked a little bewildered, but she answered , “’Taint no story, Tante Cat’rinette. I yeard papa sayin’, dinner time, Mr. Raymond sen’ fo’ Dr. Chalon. An’ Dr. Chalon says he ain’t got time to go yonda. An’ papa says it’s because Dr. Chalon on’y want to go w’ere it’s rich people; an’ he’s ’fraid Mista Raymond ain’ goin’ pay ’im.”
376Tante Cat’rinette admired the little girl’s pretty gingham dress, and asked her who had ironed it. She stroked her brown curls, and talked of all manner of things quite foreign to the subject of Eusèbe and his wicked for telling lies.
She was not restless as she had been during the early part of the day, and she no longer mumbled and muttered as she had been doing over her work.
At night she lighted her coal-oil lamp, and placed it near a window where its light could be seen from the street through the half-closed . Then she sat herself down, and motionless, in a chair.
When it was near upon midnight, Tante Cat’rinette arose, and looked cautiously, very cautiously, out of the door. Her house lay in the line of deep shadow that extended along the street. The other side was bathed in the pale light of the declining moon. The night was agreeably mild, profoundly still, but pregnant with the subtle quivering life of early spring. The earth seemed asleep and breathing,—a scent-laden breath that blew in soft against Tante Cat’rinette’s face as she 377emerged from the house. She closed and locked her door noiselessly; then she crept slowly away, treading softly, stealthily as a cat, in the deep shadow.
There were but few people abroad at that hour. Once she ran upon a gay party of ladies and gentlemen who had been spending the evening over cards and anisette. They did not notice Tante Cat’rinette almost herself against the black wall of the cathedral. She breathed freely and ventured from her retreat only when they had disappeared from view. Once a man saw her quite plainly, as she
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