OZÈME often wondered
why there was not a special dispensation of providence to do away with the
necessity for work. There seemed to him so much created for man's enjoyment in
this world, and so little time and opportunity to profit by it. To sit and do
nothing but breathe was already a pleasure to Ozème; but to sit in the company
of a few choice companions, including a sprinkling of ladies, was even a
greater delight; and the joy which a day's hunting or fishing or picnicking
afforded him is hardly to be described. Yet he was by no means indolent. He
worked faithfully on the plantation the whole year long, in a sort of
methodical way; but when the time came around for his annual week's holiday,
there was no holding him back. It was often decidedly inconvenient for the
planter that Ozème usually chose to take his holiday during some very busy
season of the year.
He started out one
morning in the beginning of October. He had borrowed Mr. Laballière's buckboard
and Padue's old gray mare, and a harness from the negro Sévérin. He wore a
light-blue suit which had been sent all the way from St. Louis, and which had
cost him ten dollars; he had paid almost as much again for his boots; and his
hat was a broad-rimmed gray felt which he had no cause to be ashamed of. When
Ozème went «broading,» he dressed--well, regardless of cost. His eyes were blue
and mild; his hair was light, and he wore it rather long; he was clean shaven,
and really did not look his thirty-five years.
Ozème had laid his
plans weeks beforehand. He was going visiting along Cane River; the mere
contemplation thrilled him with pleasure. He counted upon reaching Frédeaus'
about noon, and he would stop and dine there. Perhaps they would ask him to
stay all night. He really did not hold to staying all night, and was not
decided to accept if they did ask him. There were only the two old people, and
he rather fancied the notion of pushing on to Beltrans', where he would stay a
night, or even two, if urged. He was quite sure there would be something
agreeable going on at Beltrans', with all those young people--perhaps a
fish-fry, or possibly a ball!
Of course he would have
to give a day to Tante Sophie and another to Cousine Victoire; but none to the
St. Annes unless entreated--after St. Anne reproaching him last year with being
a fainéant for broading at such a season! At Cloutierville, where he would
linger as long as possible, he meant to turn and retrace his course, zigzagging
back and forth across Cane River so as to take in the Duplans, the Velcours,
and others that he could not at the moment recall. A week seemed to Ozème a
very, very little while in which to crowd so much pleasure.
There were steam-gins
at work; he could hear them whistling far and near. On both sides of the river
the fields were white with cotton, and everybody in the world seemed busy but
Ozème. This reflection did not distress or disturb him in the least; he pursued
his way at peace with himself and his surroundings.
At Lamérie's
cross-roads store, where he stopped to buy a cigar, he learned that there was
no use heading for Frédeaus', as the two old people had gone to town for a
lengthy visit, and the house was locked up. It was at Frédeaus' that Ozème had
intended to dine.
He sat in the
buckboard, given up to a moment or two of reflection. The result was that he
turned away from the river, and entered the road that led between two fields
back to the woods and into the heart of the country. He had determined upon
taking a short cut to the Beltrans' plantation, and on the way he meant to keep
an eye open for old Aunt Tildy's cabin, which he knew lay in some remote part
of this cut-off. He remembered that Aunt Tildy could cook an excellent meal if
she had the material at hand. He would induce her to fry him a chicken, drip a
cup of coffee, and turn him out a pone of corn-bread, which he felt would be
sumptuous enough fare for the occasion.
Aunt Tildy dwelt in the
usual log cabin of one room, with its chimney of mud and sticks and its shallow
gallery formed by the jutting of the roof. In close proximity to the cabin was
a small cotton-field, which from a little distance looked like a field of snow.
The cotton was bursting and overflowing foam-like from bolls on the drying stalk.
On the lower branches it was hanging ragged and tattered, and much of it had
already fallen to the ground. There were a few chinaberry-trees in the yard
before the hut, and under one of them an ancient and rusty-looking mule was
eating corn from a rude trough. Some common little creole chickens were
scratching about the mule's feet and snatching at the grains of corn that
occasionally fell from the trough.
Aunt Tildy was hobbling
across the yard when Ozème drew up before the gate. One hand was confined in a
sling; in the other she carried a tin pan, which she let fall noisily to the
ground when she recognized him. She was broad, black, and misshapen, with her
body bent forward almost at an acute angle. She wore a blue cottonade of large
plaids, and a bandana awkwardly twisted around her head.
«Good land, man! Whar
you come from?» was her startled exclamation at beholding him.
«F'om home, Aunt Tildy;
w'ere else do you expec'?» replied Ozème, dismounting composedly.
He had not seen the old
woman for several years--since she was cooking in town for the family with
which he boarded at the time. She had washed and ironed for him, atrociously,
it is true, but her intentions were beyond reproach if her washing was not. She
had also been clumsily attentive to him during a spell of illness. He had paid
her with an occasional bandana, a calico dress, or a checked apron, and they
had always considered the account between themselves square, with no
sentimental feeling of gratitude remaining on either side.
«I like to know,»
remarked Ozème, as he took the gray mare from the shafts, and led her up to the
trough where the mule was-- «I like to know w'at you mean by makin' a crop like
that an' then lettin' it go to was'e? Who you reckon's goin' to pick that
cotton? You think maybe the angels goin' to come down an' pick it fo' you, an'
gin it an' press it, an' then give you ten cents a poun' fo' it, hein?»
«Ef de Lord don' pick
it, I don' know who gwine pick it, Mista Ozème. I tell you, me an' Sandy we wuk
dat crap day in an' day out; it's him done de mos' of it.»
«Sandy? That little--»
«He ain' dat li'le
Sandy no mo' w'at you ric'lec's; he 'mos' a man, an' he wuk like a man too. He
wuk mo' 'an fittin' fo' his strenk, an' now he layin' in dah sick--God A'mighty
knows how sick. An' me wid a risin' twell I 'bleeged to walk de flo' o' nights,
an' don' know ef I ain' gwine to lose de han' atter all.»
«W'y, in the name o'
conscience, you don' hire somebody to pick?»
«Whar I got money to
hire? An' you knows well as me ev'y chick an' chile is pickin' roun' on de
plantations an' gittin' good pay.»
The whole outlook
appeared to Ozème very depressing, and even menacing, to his personal comfort
and peace of mind. He foresaw no prospect of dinner unless he should cook it
himself. And there was that Sandy--he remembered well the little scamp of
eight, always at his grandmother's heels when she was cooking or washing. Of
course he would have to go in and look at the boy, and no doubt dive into his
traveling-bag for quinine, without which he never traveled.
Sandy was indeed very
ill, consumed with fever. He lay on a cot covered up with a faded patchwork
quilt. His eyes were half closed, and he was muttering and rambling on about
hoeing and bedding and cleaning and thinning out the cotton; he was hauling it
to the gin, wrangling about weight and bagging and ties and the price offered
per pound. That bale or two of cotton had not only sent Sandy to bed, but had
pursued him there, holding him through his fevered dreams, and threatening to
end him. Ozème would never have known the black boy, he was so tall, so thin,
and seemingly so wasted, lying there in bed.
«See yere, Aunt Tildy,»
said Ozème, after he had, as was usual with him when in doubt, abandoned
himself to a little reflection; «between us--you an' me--we got to manage to
kill an' cook one o' those chickens I see scratchin' out yonda, fo' I'm
jus'about starved. I reckon you ain't got any quinine in the house? No; I didn'
suppose an instant you had. Well, I'm goin' to give Sandy a good dose o'
quinine to-night, an' I'm goin' stay an' see how that'll work on 'im. But
sun-up, min' you, I mus' get out o' yere.»
Ozème had spent more
comfortable nights than the one passed in Aunt Tildy's bed, which she
considerately abandoned to him.
In the morning Sandy's
fever was somewhat abated, but had not taken a decided enough turn to justify
Ozème in quitting him before noon, unless he was willing «to feel like a dog,»
as he told himself. He appeared before Aunt Tildy stripped to the undershirt,
and wearing his second-best pair of trousers.
«That's a nice pickle
o' fish you got me in, ol' woman. I guarantee, nex' time I go abroad, 't ain't
me that'll take any cut- off. W'ere's that cotton-basket an' cotton-sack o'
yo's?»
«I knowed it!» chanted
Aunt Tildy--«I knowed de Lord war gwine sen' somebody to holp me out. He warn'
gwine let de crap was'e atter he give Sandy an' me de strenk to make hit. De
Lord gwine shove you 'long de row, Mista Ozème. De Lord gwine give you plenty
mo' fingers an' han's to pick dat cotton nimble an' clean.»
«Neva you min' w'at the
Lord's goin' to do; go get me that cotton-sack. An' you put that poultice like
I tol' you on yo' han', an' set down there an' watch Sandy. It looks like you
are 'bout as helpless as a' ol' cow tangled up in a potato-vine.»
Ozème had not picked
cotton for many years, and he took to it a little awkwardly at first; but by
the time he had reached the end of the first row the old dexterity of youth had
come back to his hands, which flew rapidly back and forth with the motion of a
weaver's shuttle; and his ten fingers became really nimble in clutching the
cotton from its dry shell. By noon he had gathered about fifty pounds. Sandy
was not then quite so well as he had promised to be, and Ozème concluded to
stay that day and one more night. If the boy were no better in the morning, he
would go off in search of a doctor for him, and he himself would continue on
down to Tante Sophie's; the Beltrans' was out of the question now.
Sandy hardly needed a
doctor in the morning. Ozème's doctoring was beginning to tell favorably; but
he would have considered it criminal indifference and negligence to go away and
leave the boy to Aunt Tildy's awkward ministrations just at the critical moment
when there was a turn for the better; so he stayed that day out, and picked his
hundred and fifty pounds.
On the third day it
looked like rain, and a heavy rain just then would mean a heavy loss for Aunt
Tildy and Sandy, and Ozème again took to the field, this time urging Aunt Tildy
before him to do what she might with her one sound hand.
«Aunt Tildy,» called
out Ozème to the bent old woman moving ahead of him between the white rows of
cotton, «if the Lord gets me safe out o' this ditch, 't ain't to-morrow I'll
fall in anotha with my eyes open, I bet you.»
«Keep along, Mista Ozème;
don' grumble, don' stumble; de Lord's a-watchin' you. Look at yo' Aunt Tildy;
she doin' mo' wid her one han' 'an you doin' wid yo' two, man. Keep right
along, honey. Watch dat cotton how it fallin' in yo' Aunt Tildy's bag.»
«I am watchin' you, ol'
woman; you don' fool me. You got to work that han' o' yo's spryer than you
doin', or I'll take the rawhide. You done fo'got w'at the rawhide tas'e like, I
reckon»--a reminder which amused Aunt Tildy so powerfully that her big negro
laugh resounded over the whole cotton-patch, and even caused Sandy, who heard
it, to turn in his bed.
The weather was still
threatening on the succeeding day, and a sort of dogged determination or
characteristic desire to see his undertakings carried to a satisfactory
completion urged Ozème to continue his efforts to drag Aunt Tildy out of the
mire into which circumstances seemed to have thrust her.
One night the rain did
come, and began to beat softly on the roof of the old cabin. Sandy opened his
eyes, which were no longer brilliant with the fever flame. «Granny,» he
whispered, «de rain! Des listen, granny; de rain a-comin', an' I ain' pick dat
cotton yit. W'at time it is? Gi' me my pants--I got to go--»
«You lay whar you is,
chile alive. Dat cotton put aside clean and dry. Me an' de Lord an' Mista Ozème
done pick dat cotton.»
Ozème drove away in the
morning looking quite as spick and span as the day he left home in his blue
suit and his light felt drawn a little over his eyes.
«You want to take care
o' that boy,» he instructed Aunt Tildy at parting, »an' get 'im on his feet.
An', let me tell you, the nex' time I start out to broad, if you see me passin'
in this yere cut-off, put on yo' specs an' look at me good, because it won't be
me; it'll be my ghos', ol' woman.»
Indeed, Ozème, for some
reason or other, felt quite shamefaced as he drove back to the plantation. When
he emerged from the lane which he had entered the week before, and turned into
the river road, Lamerie, standing in the store door, shouted out:
»Hé, Ozème! you had
good times yonda? I bet you danced holes in the sole of them new boots.»
»Don't talk, Laérie,»
was Ozème's rather ambiguous reply, as he flourished the remainder of a whip
over the old gray mare's sway-back, urging her to a gentle trot.
When he reached home,
Bodé, one of Padue's boys, who was assisting him to unhitch, remarked:
»How come you didn' go
yonda down the coas' like you said, Mista Ozème? Nobody didn' see you in
Cloutierville, an' Mailitte say you neva cross' de twenty-fo'-mile ferry, an'
nobody didn' see you no place.»
Ozème returned, after
his customary moment of reflection:
»You see, it's 'mos'
always the same thing on Cane Riva, my boy; a man gets tired o' that à la fin.
This time I went back in the woods, 'way yonda in the Frédeau cut-off; kin' o'
campin' an' roughin' like, you might say. I tell you, it was sport, Bodé»
Kate Chopin.