Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales Part 11

When Old Easter had finished her duties as hostess, sharing her good things equally with those who sat at her little table and those who squatted in an outer circle on the floor, she remarked that it carried her away back to old times when she stood behind the governor's chair "while he h'isted his winegla.s.s an' drink ter de ladies' side curls."

And Crazy Jake said yes, he remembered, too. And then he began to nod, while blind Pete remarked, "To my eyes de purtiest thing about de whole birfday party is de bo'quet o' Easter lilies in de middle o' de table."

SAINT IDYL'S LIGHT

SAINT IDYL'S LIGHT

You would never have guessed that her name was Idyl--the slender, angular little girl of thirteen years who stood in her faded gown of checkered homespun on the brow of the Mississippi River. And fancy a saint balancing a bucket of water on top of her head!

Yet, as she puts the pail down beside her, the evening sun gleaming through her fair hair seems to transform it into a halo, as some one speaks her name, "Saint Idyl."

Her thin, little ears, sun-filled as she stands, are crimson disks; and the outlines of her upper arms, dimly seen through the flimsy sleeves, are as meagre as are the ankles above her bare, slim feet.

The appellation "Saint Idyl," given first in playful derision, might have been long ago forgotten but for the incident which this story records.

It was three years before, when the plantation children, colored and white together, had been saying, as is a fashion with them, what they would like to be.

One had chosen a "blue-eyed lady wid flounces and a pink fan," another a "fine white 'oman wid long black curls an' ear-rings," and a third would have been "a hoop-skirted lady wid a tall hat."

It was then that Idyl, the only white child of the group--the adopted orphan of the overseer's family--had said:

"I'd choose to be a saint, like the one in the gla.s.s winder in the church, with light shinin' from my head. I'd walk all night up and down the 'road bend,' so travellers could see the way and wagons wouldn't get stallded."

The children had shuddered and felt half afraid at this.

"But you'd git stallded yo'se'f in dat black mud--"

"An' de runaways in de canebrake 'd ketch yer--"

"An' de paterole'd shoot yer--"

"An' eve'body'd think you was a walkin' sperit, an' run away f'om yer."

So the protests had come in, though the gleaming eyes of the little negroes had shown their delight in the fantastic idea.

"But I'd walk on a cloud, like the saint in the picture," Idyl had insisted. "And my feet wouldn't touch the mud, and when the runaways looked into my face, they'd try to be good and go back to their masters.

n.o.body would hurt me. Tired horses would be glad to see my light, and everybody would love me."

So, first laughingly, and then as a matter of habit, she had come to be known as "Saint Idyl."

As she stands quite still, with face uplifted, out on the levee this evening, one is reminded in looking at her of the "Maid of Domremi"

listening to the voices.

Idyl was in truth listening to voices--voices new, strange, and solemn--voices of heavy, distant cannon.

It was the 23d of April, 1862. A few miles below Bijou Plantation Farragut's fleet was storming the blockade at Fort Jackson. All along the lower Mississippi it was a time of dread and terror.

The negroes, for the most part awed and terror-stricken, muttered prayers as they went about, and all night long sang mournfully and shouted and prayed in the churches or in groups in their cabins, or even in the road.

The war had come at last. Its glare was upon the sky at night, and all day long reiterated its persistent staccato menace:

"Boom-m-m! Gloom-m-m! Tomb-b-b! Doom-m-m!"

The air had never seemed to lose the vibratory tremor, "M-m-m!" since the first gun, nearly six days ago.

It was as if the lips of the land were trembling. And the trembling lips of the black mothers, as they pressed their babes to their bosoms, echoed the wordless terror.

Death was in the air. Had they doubted it? In a field near by a sh.e.l.l had fallen, burying itself in the earth, and, exploding, had sent two men into the air, killing one and returning the other unhurt.

Now the survivor, saved as by a miracle, was preaching "The Wrath to Come."

To quote from himself, he had "been up to heaven long enough to get 'ligion." He had "gone up a lost sinner and come down a saved soul.

Bless Gord!"

Regarding his life as charmed, the blacks followed him in crowds, while he descanted upon the text: "Then two shall be in the field. One shall be taken and the other left."

A great revival was in progress.

But this afternoon the levee at Bijou had been the scene of a new panic.

Rumor said that the blockade chain had been cut. Farragut's war monsters might any moment come snorting up the river. Nor was this all. The only local defence here was a volunteer artillery company of "Exempts." Old "Captain Doc," their leader, also local druggist and postmaster (doctor and minister only in emergency), was a unique and picturesque figure.

Full of bombast as of ultimate kindness of feeling, he was equally happy in all of his four offices.

The "Rev. Capt. Doc, M.D.," as he was wont, on occasion, to call himself--why drag in a personal name among t.i.tles in themselves sufficiently distinguishing?--was by common consent the leading man with a certain under-population along the coast. And when, three months before, he had harangued them as to the patriot's duty of home defence, there was not a worthy incapable present but enthusiastically enlisted.

The tension of the times forbade perception of the ludicrous. For three months the "Riffraffs"--so they proudly called themselves--rheumatic, deaf, palsied, halt, lame, and one or two nearly blind, had represented "the cause," "the standing army," "le grand militaire," to the inflammable imaginations of this handful of simple rural people of the lower coast.

Of the nine "odds and ends of old cannon" which Captain Doc had been able to collect, it was said that but one would carry a ball. Certainly, of the remaining seven, one was of wood, an ancient gunsmith's sign, and another a gilded papier-mache affair of a former Mystick Krewe.

Still, these answered for drill purposes, and would be replaced by genuine guns when possible. They were quite as good for everything excepting a battle, and in that case, of course, it would be a simple thing "to seize the enemy's guns" and use them.

When the Riffraffs had paraded up and down the river road no one had smiled, and if anybody realized that their captain wore the gorgeous pompon of a drum-major, its fitness was not questioned.

It was becoming to him. It corresponded to his lordly strut, and was in keeping with the stentorian tones that shouted "Halt!" or "Avance!"

Captain Doc appealed to Americans and creoles alike, and the Riffraffs marched quite as often to the stirring measures of "La Ma.r.s.eillaise" as to "The Bonny Blue Flag."

Ever since the first guns at the forts, the good captain had been disporting himself in full feather. He was "ready for the enemy."

His was a pleasing figure, and even inspiring as a picturesque embodiment of patriotic zeal; but when this afternoon the Riffraffs had planted their artillery along the levee front, while the little captain rallied them to "prepare to die by their guns," it was a different matter.

The company, loyal to a man, had responded with a shout, the blacksmith, to whose deaf ears his anvil had been silent for twenty years, throwing up his hat with the rest, while the epileptic who manned the papier-mache gun was observed to scream the loudest.