第65章

The bayou curved like a crescent around the point of land on which La Folle's cabin stood.Between the stream and the hut lay a big abandoned field, where cattle were pastured when the bayou supplied them with water enough.Through the woods that spread back into unknown regions the woman had drawn an imaginary line, and past this circle she never stepped.This was the form of her only mania.

She was now a large, gaunt black woman, past thirty-five.Her real name was Jacqueline, but every one on the plantation called her La Folle, because in childhood she had been frightened literally "out of her senses," and had never wholly regained them.

It was when there had been skirmishing and sharpshooting all day in the woods.Evening was near when P'tit Maitre, black with powder and crimson with blood, had staggered into the cabin of Jacqueline's mother, his pursuers close at his heels.The sight had stunned her childish reason.

She dwelt alone in her solitary cabin, for the rest of the quarters had long since been removed beyond her sight and knowledge.She had more physical strength than most men, and made her patch of cotton and corn and tobacco like the best of them.But of the world beyond the bayou she had long known nothing, save what her morbid fancy conceived.

People at Bellissime had grown used to her and her way, and they thought nothing of it.Even when "Old Mis'" died, they did not wonder that La Folle had not crossed the bayou, but had stood upon her side of it, wailing and lamenting.

P'tit Maitre was now the owner of Bellissime.He was a middle-aged man, with a family of beautiful daughters about him, and a little son whom La Folle loved as if he had been her own.She called him Cheri, and so did every one else because she did.

None of the girls had ever been to her what Cheri was.They had each and all loved to be with her, and to listen to her wondrous stories of things that always happened "yonda, beyon' de bayou."But none of them had stroked her black hand quite as Cheri did, nor rested their heads against her knee so confidingly, nor fallen asleep in herarms as he used to do.For Cheri hardly did such things now, since he had become the proud possessor of a gun, and had had his black curls cut off.

That summer--the summer Cheri gave La Folle two black curls tied with a knot of red ribbon--the water ran so low in the bayou that even the little children at Bellissime were able to cross it on foot, and the cattle were sent to pasture down by the river.La Folle was sorry when they were gone, for she loved these dumb companions well, and liked to feel that they were there, and to hear them browsing by night up to her own enclosure.

It was Saturday afternoon, when the fields were deserted.The men had flocked to a neighboring village to do their week's trading, and the women were occupied with household affairs,--La Folle as well as the others.It was then she mended and washed her handful of clothes, scoured her house, and did her baking.

In this last employment she never forgot Cheri.To-day she had fashioned croquignoles of the most fantastic and alluring shapes for him.So when she saw the boy come trudging across the old field with his gleaming little new rifle on his shoulder, she called out gayly to him, "Cheri! Cheri!"But Cheri did not need the summons, for he was coming straight to her.His pockets all bulged out with almonds and raisins and an orange that he had secured for her from the very fine dinner which had been given that day up at his father's house.

He was a sunny-faced youngster of ten.When he had emptied his pockets, La Folle patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled hands on her apron, and smoothed his hair.Then she watched him as, with his cakes in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton back of the cabin, and disappeared into the wood.

He had boasted of the things he was going to do with his gun out there."You think they got plenty deer in the wood, La Folle?" he hadinquired, with the calculating air of an experienced hunter.

"Non, non!" the woman laughed."Don't you look fo' no deer, Cheri.Dat's too big.But you bring La Folle one good fat squirrel fo' her dinner to-morrow, an' she goin' be satisfi'.""One squirrel ain't a bite.I'll bring you mo' 'an one, La Folle," he had boasted pompously as he went away.

When the woman, an hour later, heard the report of the boy's rifle close to the wood's edge, she would have thought nothing of it if a sharp cry of distress had not followed the sound.

She withdrew her arms from the tub of suds in which they had been plunged, dried them upon her apron, and as quickly as her trembling limbs would bear her, hurried to the spot whence the ominous report had come.

It was as she feared.There she found Cheri stretched upon the ground, with his rifle beside him.He moaned piteously:-- "I'm dead, La Folle! I'm dead! I'm gone!""Non, non!" she exclaimed resolutely, as she knelt beside him."Put you' arm 'roun' La Folle's nake, Cheri.Dat's nuttin'; dat goin' be nuttin'." She lifted him in her powerful arms.

Cheri had carried his gun muzzle-downward.He had stumbled,--he did not know how.He only knew that he had a ball lodged somewhere in his leg, and he thought that his end was at hand.Now, with his head upon the woman's shoulder, he moaned and wept with pain and fright.

"Oh, La Folle!La Folle!it hurt so bad! I can' stan' it, La Folle!" "Don't cry, mon bebe, mon bebe, mon Cheri!" the woman spokesoothingly as she covered the ground with long strides."La Folle goin' mine you; Doctor Bonfils goin' come make mon Cheri well agin."She had reached the abandoned field.As she crossed it with her precious burden, she looked constantly and restlessly from side to side.A terrible fear was upon her, --the fear of the world beyond the bayou, the morbid and insane dread she had been under since childhood.