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When The Bayou Overflowed
by
Louisette, the orphan, the girl-lover, whom everyone in Franklin knew would some day be Ma’am Mouton’s daughter-in-law, wept and pleaded in vain. Sylves’ kissed her quivering lips.
“Ma chere,” he would say, “t’ink, I will bring you one fine diamon’ ring, nex’ spring, when de bayou overflows again.”
Louisette would fain be content with this promise. As for Ma’am Mouton, she seemed to have grown ages older. Her Sylves’ was going from her; Sylves’, whose trips to New Orleans had been a yearly source of heart-break, was going far away for months to that mistily wicked city, a thousand miles away.
October came, and Sylves’ had gone. Ma’am Mouton had kept up bravely until the last, when with one final cry she extended her arms to the pitiless train bearing him northward. Then she and Louisette went home drearily, the one leaning upon the other.
Ah, that was a great day when the first letter came from Chicago!
Louisette came running in breathlessly from the post-office, and together they read it again and again. Chicago was such a wonderful city, said Sylves’. Why, it was always like New Orleans at Mardi Gras with the people. He had seen Joseph Lascaud, and he had a place to work promised him. He was well, but he wanted, oh, so much, to see maman and Louisette. But then, he could wait.
Was ever such a wonderful letter? Louisette sat for an hour afterwards building gorgeous air-castles, while Ma’am Mouton fingered the paper and murmured prayers to the Virgin for Sylves’. When the bayou overflowed again? That would be in April. Then Louisette caught herself looking critically at her slender brown fingers, and blushed furiously, though Ma’am Mouton could not see her in the gathering twilight.
Next week there was another letter, even more wonderful than the first. Sylves’ had found work. He was making cigars, and was earning two dollars a day. Such wages! Ma’am Mouton and Louisette began to plan pretty things for the brown cottage on the Teche.
That was a pleasant winter, after all. True, there was no Sylves’, but then he was always in New Orleans for a few months any way. There were his letters, full of wondrous tales of the great queer city, where cars went by ropes underground, and where there was no Mardi Gras and the people did not mind Lent. Now and then there would be a present, a keepsake for Louisette, and some money for maman. They would plan improvements for the cottage, and Louisette began to do sewing and dainty crochet, which she would hide with a blush if anyone hinted at a trousseau.
It was March now, and Spring-time. The bayou began to sweep down between its banks less sluggishly than before; it was rising, and soon would spread over its tiny levees. The doors could be left open now, though the trees were not yet green; but then down here the trees do not swell and bud slowly and tease you for weeks with promises of greenness. Dear no, they simply look mysterious, and their twigs shake against each other and tell secrets of the leaves that will soon be born. Then one morning you awake, and lo, it is a green world! The boughs have suddenly clothed themselves all in a wondrous garment, and you feel the blood run riot in your veins out of pure sympathy.
One day in March, it was warm and sweet. Underfoot were violets, and wee white star flowers peering through the baby-grass. The sky was blue, with flecks of white clouds reflecting themselves in the brown bayou. Louisette tripped up the red brick walk with the Chicago letter in her hand, and paused a minute at the door to look upon the leaping waters, her eyes dancing.