trézinie, the blacksmith’s daughter, stepped out upon the gallery just as m’sieur michel passed by. he did not notice the girl but walked straight on down the village street.
his seven hounds skulked, as usual, about him. at his side hung his powder-horn, and on his shoulder a gunny-bag slackly filled with game that he carried to the store. a broad felt hat shaded his bearded face and in his hand he carelessly swung his old-fashioned rifle. it was doubtless the same with which he had slain so many people, trézinie shudderingly reflected. for cami, the cobbler’s son—who must have known—had often related to her how this man had killed two choctaws, as many texans, a free mulatto and numberless blacks, in that vague locality known as “the hills.”
108older people who knew better took little trouble to correct this ghastly record that a younger generation had scored against him. they themselves had come to half-believe that m’sieur michel might be capable of anything, living as he had, for so many years, apart from humanity, alone with his hounds in a kennel of a cabin on the hill. the time seemed to most of them fainter than a memory when, a lusty young fellow of twenty-five, he had cultivated his strip of land across the lane from les chêniers; when home and toil and wife and child were so many benedictions that he humbly thanked heaven for having given him.
but in the early ’60’s he went with his friend duplan and the rest of the “louisiana tigers.” he came back with some of them. he came to find—well, death may lurk in a peaceful valley lying in wait to ensnare the toddling feet of little ones. then, there are women—there are wives with thoughts that roam and grow wanton with roaming; women whose pulses are stirred by strange voices and eyes that woo; women who forget the claims of yesterday, the hopes of to-morrow, in the impetuous clutch of to-day.
109but that was no reason, some people thought, why he should have cursed men who found their blessings where they had left them—cursed god, who had abandoned him.
persons who met him upon the road had long ago stopped greeting him. what was the use? he never answered them; he spoke to no one; he never so much as looked into men’s faces. when he bartered his game and fish at the village store for powder and shot and such scant food as he needed, he did so with few words and less courtesy. yet feeble as it was, this was the only link that held him to his fellow-beings.
strange to say, the sight of m’sieur michel, though more forbidding than ever that delightful spring afternoon, was so suggestive to trézinie as to be almost an inspiration.
it was easter eve and the early part of april. the whole earth seemed teeming with new, green, vigorous life everywhere—except the arid spot that immediately surrounded trézinie. it was no use; she had tried. nothing would grow among those cinders that filled the yard; in that atmosphere of smoke and flame that was constantly belching from the forge 110where her father worked at his trade. there were wagon wheels, bolts and bars of iron, plowshares and all manner of unpleasant-looking things littering the bleak, black yard; nothing green anywhere except a few weeds that would force themselves into fence corners. and trézinie knew that flowers belong to easter time, just as dyed eggs do. she had plenty of eggs; no one had more or prettier ones; she was not going to grumble about that. but she did feel distressed because she had not a flower to help deck the altar on easter morning. and every one else seemed to have them in such abundance! there was ’dame suzanne among her roses across the way. she must have clipped a hundred since noon. an hour ago trézinie had seen the carriage from les chêniers pass by on its way to church with mamzelle euphrasie’s pretty head looking like a picture enframed with the easter lilies that filled the vehicle.
for the twentieth time trézinie walked out upon the gallery. she saw m’sieur michel and thought of the pine hill. when she thought of the hill she thought of the flowers that grew there—free as sunshine. the girl 111gave a joyous spring that changed to a farandole as her feet twinkled across the rough, loose boards of the gallery.
“hé, cami!” she cried, clapping her hands together.
cami rose from the bench where he sat pegging away at the clumsy sole of a shoe, and came lazily to the fence that divided his abode from trézinie’s.
“well, w’at?” he inquired with heavy amiability. she leaned far over the railing to better communicate with him.
“you’ll go with me yonda on the hill to pick flowers fo’ easter, cami? i’m goin’ to take la fringante along, too, to he’p with the baskets. w’at you say?”
“no!” was the stolid reply. “i’m boun’ to finish them shoe’, if it is fo’ a nigga.”
“not now,” she returned impatiently; “to-morrow mo’nin’ at sun-up. an’ i tell you, cami, my flowers’ll beat all! look yonda at ’dame suzanne pickin’ her roses a’ready. an’ mamzelle euphraisie she’s car’ied her lilies an’ gone, her. you tell me all that’s goin’ be fresh to-moro’!”
112“jus’ like you say,” agreed the boy, turning to resume his work. “but you want to mine out fo’ the ole possum up in the wood. let m’sieu michel set eyes on you!” and he raised his arms as if aiming with a gun. “pim, pam, poum! no mo’ trézinie, no mo’ cami, no mo’ la fringante—all stretch’!”
the possible risk which cami so vividly foreshadowed but added a zest to trézinie’s projected excursion.
