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The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories

A >> Alice Dunbar >> The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories



Note: I have closed contractions, e.g. "was n't" has become
"wasn't"
I have also made the following changes to the text:
PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO
43 13 accordeon accordion
56 22 work But work. But
78 14 chere chere
122 12 "Bravo! "Bravo!"
170 17 tumultously tumultuously
216 5 be,' be,"





THE GOODNESS OF ST. ROCQUE AND OTHER STORIES
By ALICE DUNBAR


To
My best Comrade
My Husband





CONTENTS


THE GOODNESS OF SAINT ROCQUE
TONY'S WIFE
THE FISHERMAN OF PASS CHRISTIAN
M'SIEU FORTIER'S VIOLIN
BY THE BAYOU ST. JOHN
WHEN THE BAYOU OVERFLOWS
MR. BAPTISTE
A CARNIVAL JANGLE
LITTLE MISS SOPHIE
SISTER JOSEPHA
THE PRALINE WOMAN
ODALIE
LA JUANITA
TITEE



THE GOODNESS OF SAINT ROCQUE

Manuela was tall and slender and graceful, and once you knew her
the lithe form could never be mistaken. She walked with the easy
spring that comes from a perfectly arched foot. To-day she swept
swiftly down Marais Street, casting a quick glance here and there
from under her heavy veil as if she feared she was being
followed. If you had peered under the veil, you would have seen
that Manuela's dark eyes were swollen and discoloured about the
lids, as though they had known a sleepless, tearful night.
There had been a picnic the day before, and as merry a crowd of
giddy, chattering Creole girls and boys as ever you could see
boarded the ramshackle dummy-train that puffed its way wheezily
out wide Elysian Fields Street, around the lily-covered bayous,
to Milneburg-on-the-Lake. Now, a picnic at Milneburg is a thing
to be remembered for ever. One charters a rickety-looking,
weather-beaten dancing-pavilion, built over the water, and after
storing the children--for your true Creole never leaves the small
folks at home--and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young
folks go up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you
ever heard. For what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar,
a cornet, and a bass viol to trip the quadrille to at a
picnic?

Then one can fish in the lake and go bathing under the prim
bath-houses, so severely separated sexually, and go rowing on the
lake in a trim boat, followed by the shrill warnings of anxious
mamans. And in the evening one comes home, hat crowned with cool
gray Spanish moss, hands burdened with fantastic latanier baskets
woven by the brown bayou boys, hand in hand with your dearest
one, tired but happy.

At this particular picnic, however, there had been bitterness of
spirit. Theophile was Manuela's own especial property, and
Theophile had proven false. He had not danced a single waltz or
quadrille with Manuela, but had deserted her for Claralie, blonde
and petite. It was Claralie whom Theophile had rowed out on the
lake; it was Claralie whom Theophile had gallantly led to dinner;
it was Claralie's hat that he wreathed with Spanish moss, and
Claralie whom he escorted home after the jolly singing ride in
town on the little dummy-train.

Not that Manuela lacked partners or admirers. Dear no! she was
too graceful and beautiful for that. There had been more than
enough for her. But Manuela loved Theophile, you see, and no one
could take his place. Still, she had tossed her head and let her
silvery laughter ring out in the dance, as though she were the
happiest of mortals, and had tripped home with Henri, leaning on
his arm, and looking up into his eyes as though she adored him.

This morning she showed the traces of a sleepless night and an
aching heart as she walked down Marais Street. Across wide St.
Rocque Avenue she hastened. "Two blocks to the river and one
below--" she repeated to herself breathlessly. Then she stood on
the corner gazing about her, until with a final summoning of a
desperate courage she dived through a small wicket gate into a
garden of weed-choked flowers.

There was a hoarse, rusty little bell on the gate that gave
querulous tongue as she pushed it open. The house that sat back
in the yard was little and old and weather-beaten. Its one-story
frame had once been painted, but that was a memory remote and
traditional. A straggling morning-glory strove to conceal its
time-ravaged face. The little walk of broken bits of brick was
reddened carefully, and the one little step was scrupulously
yellow-washed, which denoted that the occupants were cleanly as
well as religious.

Manuela's timid knock was answered by a harsh "Entrez."

It was a small sombre room within, with a bare yellow-washed
floor and ragged curtains at the little window. In a corner was
a diminutive altar draped with threadbare lace. The red glow of
the taper lighted a cheap print of St. Joseph and a brazen
crucifix. The human element in the room was furnished by a
little, wizened yellow woman, who, black-robed, turbaned, and
stern, sat before an uncertain table whereon were greasy cards.

Manuela paused, her eyes blinking at the semi-obscurity within.
The Wizened One called in croaking tones:

"An' fo' w'y you come here? Assiez-la, ma'amzelle."

Timidly Manuela sat at the table facing the owner of the voice.

"I want," she began faintly; but the Mistress of the Cards
understood: she had had much experience. The cards were shuffled
in her long grimy talons and stacked before Manuela.

"Now you cut dem in t'ree part, so--un, deux, trois, bien! You
mek' you' weesh wid all you' heart, bien! Yaas, I see, I see!"

Breathlessly did Manuela learn that her lover was true, but "dat
light gal, yaas, she mek' nouvena in St. Rocque fo' hees love."

"I give you one lil' charm, yaas," said the Wizened One when the
seance was over, and Manuela, all white and nervous, leaned back
in the rickety chair. "I give you one lil' charm fo' to ween him
back, yaas. You wear h'it 'roun' you' wais', an' he come back.
Den you mek prayer at St. Rocque an' burn can'le. Den you come
back an' tell me, yaas. Cinquante sous, ma'amzelle. Merci.
Good luck go wid you."

Readjusting her veil, Manuela passed out the little wicket gate,
treading on air. Again the sun shone, and the breath of the
swamps came as healthful sea-breeze unto her nostrils. She
fairly flew in the direction of St. Rocque.

There were quite a number of persons entering the white gates of
the cemetery, for this was Friday, when all those who wish good
luck pray to the saint, and wash their steps promptly at twelve
o'clock with a wondrous mixture to guard the house. Manuela
bought a candle from the keeper of the little lodge at the
entrance, and pausing one instant by the great sun-dial to see if
the heavens and the hour were propitious, glided into the tiny
chapel, dim and stifling with heavy air from myriad wish-candles
blazing on the wide table before the altar-rail. She said her
prayer and lighting her candle placed it with the others.

Mon Dieu! how brightly the sun seemed to shine now, she thought,
pausing at the door on her way out. Her small finger-tips, still
bedewed with holy water, rested caressingly on a gamin's head.
The ivy which enfolds the quaint chapel never seemed so green;
the shrines which serve as the Way of the Cross never seemed so
artistic; the baby graves, even, seemed cheerful.

Theophile called Sunday. Manuela's heart leaped. He had been
spending his Sundays with Claralie. His stay was short and he
was plainly bored. But Manuela knelt to thank the good St.
Rocque that night, and fondled the charm about her slim waist.
There came a box of bonbons during the week, with a decorative
card all roses and fringe, from Theophile; but being a Creole,
and therefore superstitiously careful, and having been reared by
a wise and experienced maman to mistrust the gifts of a recreant
lover, Manuela quietly thrust bonbons, box, and card into the
kitchen fire, and the Friday following placed the second candle
of her nouvena in St. Rocque.

Those of Manuela's friends who had watched with indignation
Theophile gallantly leading Claralie home from High Mass on
Sundays, gasped with astonishment when the next Sunday, with his
usual bow, the young man offered Manuela his arm as the
worshippers filed out in step to the organ's march. Claralie
tossed her head as she crossed herself with holy water, and the
pink in her cheeks was brighter than usual.

Manuela smiled a bright good-morning when she met Claralie in St.
Rocque the next Friday. The little blonde blushed furiously, and
Manuela rushed post-haste to the Wizened One to confer upon this
new issue.

"H'it ees good," said the dame, shaking her turbaned head. "She
ees 'fraid, she will work, mais you' charm, h'it weel beat her."

And Manuela departed with radiant eyes.

Theophile was not at Mass Sunday morning, and murderous glances
flashed from Claralie to Manuela before the tinkling of the
Host-Bell. Nor did Theophile call at either house. Two hearts
beat furiously at the sound of every passing footstep, and two
minds wondered if the other were enjoying the beloved one's
smiles. Two pair of eyes, however, blue and black, smiled on
others, and their owners laughed and seemed none the less happy.
For your Creole girls are proud, and would die rather than let
the world see their sorrows.

Monday evening Theophile, the missing, showed his rather sheepish
countenance in Manuela's parlour, and explained that he, with
some chosen spirits, had gone for a trip--"over the Lake."

"I did not ask you where you were yesterday," replied the girl,
saucily.

Theophile shrugged his shoulders and changed the conversation.

The next week there was a birthday fete in honour of Louise,
Theophile's young sister. Everyone was bidden, and no one
thought of refusing, for Louise was young, and this would be her
first party. So, though the night was hot, the dancing went on
as merrily as light young feet could make it go. Claralie
fluffed her dainty white skirts, and cast mischievous sparkles in
the direction of Theophile, who with the maman and Louise was
bravely trying not to look self-conscious. Manuela, tall and
calm and proud-looking, in a cool, pale yellow gown was
apparently enjoying herself without paying the slightest
attention to her young host.

"Have I the pleasure of this dance?" he asked her finally, in a
lull of the music.

She bowed assent, and as if moved by a common impulse they
strolled out of the dancing-room into the cool, quaint garden,
where jessamines gave out an overpowering perfume, and a caged
mocking-bird complained melodiously to the full moon in the sky.

It must have been an engrossing tete-a-tete, for the call to
supper had sounded twice before they heard and hurried into the
house. The march had formed with Louise radiantly leading on the
arm of papa. Claralie tripped by with Leon. Of course, nothing
remained for Theophile and Manuela to do but to bring up the
rear, for which they received much good-natured chaffing.

But when the party reached the dining-room, Theophile proudly led
his partner to the head of the table, at the right hand of maman,
and smiled benignly about at the delighted assemblage. Now you
know, when a Creole young man places a girl at his mother's right
hand at his own table, there is but one conclusion to be deduced
therefrom.

If you had asked Manuela, after the wedding was over, how it
happened, she would have said nothing, but looked wise.

If you had asked Claralie, she would have laughed and said she
always preferred Leon.

If you had asked Theophile, he would have wondered that you
thought he had ever meant more than to tease Manuela.

If you had asked the Wizened One, she would have offered you a
charm.

But St. Rocque knows, for he is a good saint, and if you believe
in him and are true and good, and make your nouvenas with a clean
heart, he will grant your wish.


TONY'S WIFE

"Gimme fi' cents worth o' candy, please." It was the little Jew
girl who spoke, and Tony's wife roused herself from her knitting
to rise and count out the multi-hued candy which should go in
exchange for the dingy nickel grasped in warm, damp fingers.
Three long sticks, carefully wrapped in crispest brown paper, and
a half dozen or more of pink candy fish for lagniappe, and the
little Jew girl sped away in blissful contentment. Tony's wife
resumed her knitting with a stifled sigh until the next customer
should come.

A low growl caused her to look up apprehensively. Tony himself
stood beetle-browed and huge in the small doorway.

"Get up from there," he muttered, "and open two dozen oysters
right away; the Eliots want 'em." His English was unaccented.
It was long since he had seen Italy.

She moved meekly behind the counter, and began work on the thick
shells. Tony stretched his long neck up the street.

"Mr. Tony, mama wants some charcoal." The very small voice at
his feet must have pleased him, for his black brows relaxed into
a smile, and he poked the little one's chin with a hard, dirty
finger, as he emptied the ridiculously small bucket of charcoal
into the child's bucket, and gave a banana for lagniappe.

The crackling of shells went on behind, and a stifled sob arose
as a bit of sharp edge cut into the thin, worn fingers that
clasped the knife.

"Hurry up there, will you?" growled the black brows; "the Eliots
are sending for the oysters."

She deftly strained and counted them, and, after wiping her
fingers, resumed her seat, and took up the endless crochet work,
with her usual stifled sigh.

Tony and his wife had always been in this same little queer old
shop on Prytania Street, at least to the memory of the oldest
inhabitant in the neighbourhood. When or how they came, or how
they stayed, no one knew; it was enough that they were there,
like a sort of ancestral fixture to the street. The
neighbourhood was fine enough to look down upon these two
tumble-down shops at the corner, kept by Tony and Mrs. Murphy,
the grocer. It was a semi-fashionable locality, far up-town,
away from the old-time French quarter. It was the sort of
neighbourhood where millionaires live before their fortunes are
made and fashionable, high-priced private schools flourish, where
the small cottages are occupied by aspiring school-teachers and
choir-singers. Such was this locality, and you must admit that
it was indeed a condescension to tolerate Tony and Mrs. Murphy.

He was a great, black-bearded, hoarse-voiced, six-foot specimen
of Italian humanity, who looked in his little shop and on the
prosaic pavement of Prytania Street somewhat as Hercules might
seem in a modern drawing-room. You instinctively thought of wild
mountain-passes, and the gleaming dirks of bandit contadini in
looking at him. What his last name was, no one knew. Someone
had maintained once that he had been christened Antonio
Malatesta, but that was unauthentic, and as little to be believed
as that other wild theory that her name was Mary.

She was meek, pale, little, ugly, and German. Altogether part of
his arms and legs would have very decently made another larger
than she. Her hair was pale and drawn in sleek, thin tightness
away from a pinched, pitiful face, whose dull cold eyes hurt you,
because you knew they were trying to mirror sorrow, and could not
because of their expressionless quality. No matter what the
weather or what her other toilet, she always wore a thin little
shawl of dingy brick-dust hue about her shoulders. No matter
what the occasion or what the day, she always carried her
knitting with her, and seldom ceased the incessant twist, twist
of the shining steel among the white cotton meshes. She might
put down the needles and lace into the spool-box long enough to
open oysters, or wrap up fruit and candy, or count out wood and
coal into infinitesimal portions, or do her housework; but the
knitting was snatched with avidity at the first spare moment, and
the worn, white, blue-marked fingers, half enclosed in kid-glove
stalls for protection, would writhe and twist in and out again.
Little girls just learning to crochet borrowed their patterns
from Tony's wife, and it was considered quite a mark of
advancement to have her inspect a bit of lace done by eager,
chubby fingers. The ladies in larger houses, whose husbands
would be millionaires some day, bought her lace, and gave it to
their servants for Christmas presents.

As for Tony, when she was slow in opening his oysters or in
cooking his red beans and spaghetti, he roared at her, and
prefixed picturesque adjectives to her lace, which made her hide
it under her apron with a fearsome look in her dull eyes.

He hated her in a lusty, roaring fashion, as a healthy beefy boy
hates a sick cat and torments it to madness. When she displeased
him, he beat her, and knocked her frail form on the floor. The
children could tell when this had happened. Her eyes would be
red, and there would be blue marks on her face and neck. "Poor
Mrs. Tony," they would say, and nestle close to her. Tony did
not roar at her for petting them, perhaps, because they spent
money on the multi-hued candy in glass jars on the shelves.

Her mother appeared upon the scene once, and stayed a short time;
but Tony got drunk one day and beat her because she ate too much,
and she disappeared soon after. Whence she came and where she
departed, no one could tell, not even Mrs. Murphy, the Pauline
Pry and Gazette of the block.

Tony had gout, and suffered for many days in roaring
helplessness, the while his foot, bound and swathed in many folds
of red flannel, lay on the chair before him. In proportion as
his gout increased and he bawled from pure physical discomfort,
she became light-hearted, and moved about the shop with real,
brisk cheeriness. He could not hit her then without such pain
that after one or two trials he gave up in disgust.

So the dull years had passed, and life had gone on pretty much
the same for Tony and the German wife and the shop. The children
came on Sunday evenings to buy the stick candy, and on week-days
for coal and wood. The servants came to buy oysters for the
larger houses, and to gossip over the counter about their
employers. The little dry woman knitted, and the big man moved
lazily in and out in his red flannel shirt, exchanged politics
with the tailor next door through the window, or lounged into
Mrs. Murphy's bar and drank fiercely. Some of the children grew
up and moved away, and other little girls came to buy candy and
eat pink lagniappe fishes, and the shop still thrived.

One day Tony was ill, more than the mummied foot of gout, or the
wheeze of asthma; he must keep his bed and send for the doctor.

She clutched his arm when he came, and pulled him into the tiny
room.

"Is it--is it anything much, doctor?" she gasped.

AEsculapius shook his head as wisely as the occasion would
permit. She followed him out of the room into the shop.

"Do you--will he get well, doctor?"

AEsculapius buttoned up his frock coat, smoothed his shining hat,
cleared his throat, then replied oracularly,

"Madam, he is completely burned out inside. Empty as a shell,
madam, empty as a shell. He cannot live, for he has nothing to
live on."

As the cobblestones rattled under the doctor's equipage rolling
leisurely up Prytania Street, Tony's wife sat in her chair and
laughed,--laughed with a hearty joyousness that lifted the film
from the dull eyes and disclosed a sparkle beneath.

The drear days went by, and Tony lay like a veritable Samson
shorn of his strength, for his voice was sunken to a hoarse,
sibilant whisper, and his black eyes gazed fiercely from the
shock of hair and beard about a white face. Life went on pretty
much as before in the shop; the children paused to ask how Mr.
Tony was, and even hushed the jingles on their bell hoops as they
passed the door. Red-headed Jimmie, Mrs. Murphy's nephew, did
the hard jobs, such as splitting wood and lifting coal from the
bin; and in the intervals between tending the fallen giant and
waiting on the customers, Tony's wife sat in her accustomed
chair, knitting fiercely, with an inscrutable smile about her
purple compressed mouth.

Then John came, introducing himself, serpent-wise, into the Eden
of her bosom.

John was Tony's brother, huge and bluff too, but fair and blond,
with the beauty of Northern Italy. With the same lack of race
pride which Tony had displayed in selecting his German spouse,
John had taken unto himself Betty, a daughter of Erin,
aggressive, powerful, and cross-eyed. He turned up now, having
heard of this illness, and assumed an air of remarkable authority
at once.

A hunted look stole into the dull eyes, and after John had
departed with blustering directions as to Tony's welfare, she
crept to his bedside timidly.

"Tony," she said,--"Tony, you are very sick."

An inarticulate growl was the only response.

"Tony, you ought to see the priest; you mustn't go any longer
without taking the sacrament."

The growl deepened into words.

"Don't want any priest; you 're always after some snivelling old
woman's fuss. You and Mrs. Murphy go on with your church; it
won't make YOU any better."

She shivered under this parting shot, and crept back into the
shop. Still the priest came next day.

She followed him in to the bedside and knelt timidly.

"Tony," she whispered, "here's Father Leblanc."

Tony was too languid to curse out loud; he only expressed his
hate in a toss of the black beard and shaggy mane.

"Tony," she said nervously, "won't you do it now? It won't take
long, and it will be better for you when you go--Oh, Tony,
don't--don't laugh. Please, Tony, here's the priest."

But the Titan roared aloud: "No; get out. Think I'm a-going to
give you a chance to grab my money now? Let me die and go to hell
in peace."

Father Leblanc knelt meekly and prayed, and the woman's weak
pleadings continued,--

"Tony, I've been true and good and faithful to you. Don't die
and leave me no better than before. Tony, I do want to be a good
woman once, a real-for-true married woman. Tony, here's the
priest; say yes." And she wrung her ringless hands.

"You want my money," said Tony, slowly, "and you sha'n't have it,
not a cent; John shall have it."

Father Leblanc shrank away like a fading spectre. He came next
day and next day, only to see re-enacted the same piteous
scene,--the woman pleading to be made a wife ere death hushed
Tony's blasphemies, the man chuckling in pain-racked glee at the
prospect of her bereaved misery. Not all the prayers of Father
Leblanc nor the wailings of Mrs. Murphy could alter the
determination of the will beneath the shock of hair; he gloated
in his physical weakness at the tenacious grasp on his mentality.

"Tony," she wailed on the last day, her voice rising to a shriek
in its eagerness, "tell them I'm your wife; it'll be the same.
Only say it, Tony, before you die!"

He raised his head, and turned stiff eyes and gibbering mouth on
her; then, with one chill finger pointing at John, fell back
dully and heavily.

They buried him with many honours by the Society of Italia's
Sons. John took possession of the shop when they returned home,
and found the money hidden in the chimney corner.

As for Tony's wife, since she was not his wife after all, they
sent her forth in the world penniless, her worn fingers clutching
her bundle of clothes in nervous agitation, as though they
regretted the time lost from knitting.



THE FISHERMAN OF PASS CHRISTIAN

The swift breezes on the beach at Pass Christian meet and
conflict as though each strove for the mastery of the air. The
land-breeze blows down through the pines, resinous, fragrant,
cold, bringing breath-like memories of dim, dark woods shaded by
myriad pine-needles. The breeze from the Gulf is warm and soft
and languorous, blowing up from the south with its suggestion of
tropical warmth and passion. It is strong and masterful, and
tossed Annette's hair and whipped her skirts about her in bold
disregard for the proprieties.

Arm in arm with Philip, she was strolling slowly down the great
pier which extends from the Mexican Gulf Hotel into the waters of
the Sound. There was no moon to-night, but the sky glittered and
scintillated with myriad stars, brighter than you can ever see
farther North, and the great waves that the Gulf breeze tossed up
in restless profusion gleamed with the white fire of
phosphorescent flame. The wet sands on the beach glowed white
fire; the posts of the pier where the waves had leapt and left a
laughing kiss, the sides of the little boats and fish-cars
tugging at their ropes, alike showed white and flaming, as though
the sea and all it touched were afire.

Annette and Philip paused midway the pier to watch two fishermen
casting their nets. With heads bared to the breeze, they stood
in clear silhouette against the white background of sea.

"See how he uses his teeth," almost whispered Annette.

Drawing himself up to his full height, with one end of the huge
seine between his teeth, and the cord in his left hand, the
taller fisherman of the two paused a half instant, his right arm
extended, grasping the folds of the net. There was a swishing
rush through the air, and it settled with a sort of sob as it cut
the waters and struck a million sparkles of fire from the waves.
Then, with backs bending under the strain, the two men swung on
the cord, drawing in the net, laden with glittering restless
fish, which were unceremoniously dumped on the boards to be put
into the fish-car awaiting them.

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