Old Kaskaskia | Page 4

again into
his wooden shoes.
"Will you have something to eat and drink before you start?"
"I don't want anything to eat, and I am not going to Colonel Menard's
to-night."
"But, my son," reasoned the staring friar, "are you going to quit your
victuals and all good company because one more Zhone has come to
town, and that one such a small, helpless creature? Mademoiselle
Saucier will be at Menard's."
Dr. Dunlap wiped his forehead. He, and not the cool friar, appeared to
have been the dancer. A chorus of slaves singing on some neighboring
gallery could be heard in the pause of the violin. Beetles, lured by the
shop candles, began to explore the room where the two men were,
bumping themselves against the walls and buzzing their complaints.
"A man is nothing but a young beast until he is past twenty-five years
old," said Dr. Dunlap.
Father Baby added his own opinion to this general remark.--
"Very often he is nothing but an old beast when you catch him past
seventy. But it all depends on what kind of a man he is."
"Friar, do you believe in marriage?"
"How could I believe in marriage?"
"But do you believe in it for other people?"
"The Church has always held it to be a sacred institution."
Dr. Dunlap muttered a combination of explosive words which he had

probably picked up from sailors, making the churchman cross himself.
He spoke out, with a reckless laugh:--
"I married as soon as I came of age, and here I am, ruined for my prime
by that act."
"What!" exclaimed Father Baby, setting his hands on his hips, "you a
man of family, and playing bachelor among the women of Kaskaskia?"
"Oh, I have no wife now. She finally died, thank Heaven. If she had
only died a year sooner! But nothing matters now."
"My son," observed Father Baby severely, "Satan has you in his net.
You utter profane words, you rail against institutions sanctioned by the
Church, and you have desired the death of a human being. Repent and
do penance"--
"You have a customer, friar," sneered the young man, lifting his head to
glance aside at a figure entering the shop. "Vigo's idiot slave boy is
waiting to be cheated."
"By my cappo!" whispered Father Baby, a cunning look netting
wrinkles over his lean face, "you remind me of the bad shilling I have
laid by me to pass on that nigger. O Lamb of mercy,"--he turned and
hastily plumped on his knees before a sacred picture on the wall,--"I
will, in expiation for passing that shilling, say twelve paters and twelve
aves at the foot of the altar of thy Virgin Mother, or I will abstain from
food a whole day in thy honor."
Having offered this compromise, Father Baby sprung with a cheerful
eagerness to deal with Vigo's slave boy.
The doctor sat still, his ears closed to the chatter in the shop. His bitter
thoughts centred on the new arrival in Kaskaskia, on her brother, on all
her family.
She herself, unconscious that he inhabited the same hemisphere with
her, was standing up for the reel in Pierre Menard's house. The last

carriage had driven to the tall flight of entrance steps, discharged its
load, and parted with its horses to the huge stone stable under the house.
The mingling languages of an English and French society sounded all
around her. The girl felt bewildered, as if she had crossed ocean and
forest to find, instead of savage wilderness, an enchanted English
county full of French country estates. Names and dignitaries crowded
her memory.
A great clear glass, gilt-framed and divided into three panels, stood
over the drawing-room mantel. It reflected crowds of animated faces,
as the dance began, crossing and recrossing or running the reel in a
vista of rooms, the fan-lights around the hall door and its open leaves
disclosing the broad gallery and the dusky world of trees outside; it
reflected cluster on cluster of wax-lights. To this day the great glass
stands there, and, spotless as a clear conscience, waits upon the future.
It has held the image of Lafayette and many an historic companion of
his.
On the other side of the hall, in the dining-room, stood a carved
mahogany sideboard holding decanters and glasses. In this quiet retreat
elderly people amused themselves at card-tables. Apart from them, but
benignantly ready to chat with everybody, sat the parish priest; for
every gathering of his flock was to him a call for social ministration.
A delicious odor of supper escaped across a stone causeway from the
kitchen, and all the Menard negroes, in their best clothes, were
collected on the causeway to serve it. Through open doors they
watched the flying figures, and the rocking