Bayou Suzette Read online

  “Tante Toinette and Nonc Moumout live here. Tante Toinette, she like cats, and Nonc Moumout, he spend all his time fishing.”

  Marteel, the Indian girl, had listened to all of Suzette’s chatter, but had said nothing. They came to their last stop.

  “This where my Maman and my Papa Jules live,” said Suzette, proudly. “And my Grandmère and my big sister Eulalie and Ambrose and my three leetle brothers.”

  She stopped before a small frame house of a faded orange color, with a built-in front gallery or porch. A steep stairway rose from the gallery to the grenier or attic bedroom. The front of the house had two doors, tightly closed with solid batten shutters, made to swing outward.

  “My Grandpère, he build this house when he marry my Grandmère,” Suzette announced solemnly. “Now, my Grandpère, he dead and buried in the graveyard, but Grandmère, she live with us.”

  She opened the gate. Three dogs came running out, two hounds and a small house dog. “Papa’s hunting dogs are name’ Roro and Toto, and this is leetle Poo-poo,” Suzette explained. She patted the small dog on the head. “They won’t hurt you. Come in, Marteel. Come and see my Maman.”

  The Indian girl hung back. She looked up and down the bayou as if she wanted to run away.

  Suzette heard voices coming from the house.

  “Wait here,” she said. “I go see.”

  She went into the yard and stopped beneath a window. The window had no glass sash or frame, but a wide batten shutter which opened out. Suzette listened for a moment to the voices inside. Then she went round to the kitchen door and set the oil can and the packages on the back doorstep.

  Returning, she took Marteel by the hand. “Come,” she said. She led her to a clump of bushes in the back yard, behind a shed. “Sit down,” she ordered. “Wait here till I come.”

  “Marteel wait, yes,” said the Indian girl.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Skiff Peddlers

  Suzette took her purchases in and put them on kitchen table. She listened again to the voices in the front room.

  “Every fisherman, if he worth his salt, he own his own boat,” her mother was saying. “All Jules’ brothers, they got boats. Every man along the by’a got his own boat. How we ever gonna get along …”

  Her mother was scolding again. Suzette knew this was no time to bring in the Indian girl.

  “But the hard times, they come to us all.” This was Grandmère’s soft voice. “The worst it over now, Clothilde. We must be patient, yes. Soon Jules he be hisself again.”

  “Soon! Soon! Soon!” cried Suzette’s mother, in vexation. “You been sayin’ that since the by’a had ice! For twenty-two month you been sayin’ soon, and he never even try to get outa bed. He lazy, that w’at!”

  Her father said nothing in his own defense. Suzette could hear the bed creak and she knew he was turning his face to the wall. No, she could never bring the Indian girl in at a time like this. Much as she loved her mother, her heart burned with sympathy for her father. Maman was cruel today—Maman, who knew how to be so kind.

  Jacques, Joseph and little Noonoo came running into the kitchen. “W’at you bring us from de store?” they cried. “Somet’ing good?”

  “Not’ing,” she answered hastily. “Not’ing for you.”

  She went into the bedroom.

  “W’at you get today, Suzette?” asked her mother, sharply.

  “Nails and leetle bitty coffee and sugar and grease,” she said.

  Papa Jules turned over and looked at her. His face was pale and unshaven. His eyes brightened. “And tobacco, ma petite?”

  “M’sieu’ Gene en’t give me eny today, Papa,” said Suzette, sadly. “No coal-oil. No pepp’mint. No tobac’. He say, the money, it en’t enough. Tomorrow I ketch two bunch fish, me.”

  “Père Eugène, he gittin’ stingy, him,” said Papa Jules. He turned his face to the wall again.

  The Indian girl waited as patiently under the bushes as she had waited in the store. She waited for the rest of the day. Once when Suzette ran out to throw some scraps to the chickens, she handed her a piece of bread. “Wait!” she said again.

  To Suzette, the day seemed the longest she had ever known, but it came to an end at last. Night brought bedtime. Maman put little Noonoo to bed beside Papa Jules. Jacques and Joseph clattered up the front ladder stairs to their attic bedroom. Ambrose soon followed.

  There were two small bedrooms in the main part of the house. The one opening into the kitchen belonged to Maman and Papa Jules. The other had a double bed, shared by Grandmère and Eulalie, and a cot for Suzette.

  After Suzette went to bed, it seemed as if her elders would never come. Eulalie took a long time getting undressed and fixing her hair. When Grandmère came, it seemed as if she would never lie still, but at last her steady snoring began.

  Suzette pushed the mosquito bar aside and crept out of bed softly. The room was very dark, because the batten shutter was kept tightly closed. She felt her way, unhooked the door onto the front gallery and went out. The moon was shining and she could see clearly in the yard.

  Under the bushes sat Marteel, still waiting.

  “Come,” said Suzette.

  The Indian girl followed her into the house, and without undressing, crept into the cot beside her.

  Morning came quickly—all too quickly.

  “Ma bonté!” cried Eulalie, rising on one elbow. “Look yonda, Grandmère, see w’at Suzette got!”

  Grandmère rubbed her eyes and looked. “Hé, Susu!” she cried, in astonishment.

  Quickly Suzette pulled the red-checkered quilt over Marteel’s head. She had meant to rise before daylight and hide the Indian girl under the bushes again. Now it was too late.

  Eulalie rushed over to the cot and pulled the quilt back. “Look!” she screamed. “See w’at Suzette got!”

  “Do-o-o-n’t, Lala!” cried Suzette. “Let ’er be!”

  Grandmère rose slowly from the creaking bed. Maman came to the door and all the boys crowded in. Then suddenly, behind them, there stood Papa Jules.

  “Bonté!” “W’at Suzette got?” “Lemme see!” “W’at Suzette got?” The room resounded with astonished cries. “Look, she got a Sabine in her bed.”

  Suzette jumped up in her nightgown and stood by Marteel’s side. She grasped the girl’s hand and held it tightly. Maman chased the boys back into the kitchen.

  “A Sabine! Ma foi!” exclaimed Eulalie. “A dirty Injun sleepin’ in her bed!”

  “W’at in the name o’ sense do you mean, Suzette …” began Maman.

  “Who is it, ma petite?” asked Papa Jules, gently. “Where she come from? Tell us.”

  “Me, I find her by Père Eugène.” Suzette swallowed hard to make the words come. “M’sieu’ Gene, he say, she sell baskets but he don’t like her to look with her black eyes at him all day. He shoo her out …”

  “I should t’ink so!” interrupted Maman.

  “W’at else, ma petite?” asked Papa Jules.

  “She en’t got no maman, no papa, no brothers and sisters, no grandmère, no grandpère!” cried Suzette, passionately. “She en’t got no home to go to, no bed to sleep in, she en’t got not’ing to eat, she got only one name, and the ole Injun squaw …”

  “She gotta go back to the ole squaw,” said Maman, sternly. “Back where she come from.”

  “But the ole squaw …” began Suzette, trying to explain about the scars.

  “Jes’ look w’at she done to the clean sheet!” shrilled Eulalie. “She en’t even wash her feetses! And she en’t even took off her clothes—she slep’ in her dirty rags!”

  “She my frien’ …” began Suzette, feebly.

  Grandmère and Papa Jules stood by the door and said nothing. Suzette looked toward them longingly.

  “Dirty no-count Injun!” exclaimed Maman. “I declare, Suzette, I don’t know w’at you t’inkin’ ’bout, to bring a dirty savage in your nice clean bed. We don’t want her here. We got big enough family as ’tis. She g
otta go.”

  “But … but … she en’t got no maman … to go to,” wailed Suzette. “She en’t got no bed to sleep in!”

  “Oh, plenty Injun lives in the woods where she come from,” said Maman. “She be all right.”

  The girl did not stir. She held tightly to Suzette’s hand, looking from one face to the other, bewildered.

  Maman walked briskly out to the kitchen and returned with the broom. “Now you git right out, and don’t let me ever see you round here again.” She opened the door onto the front gallery, but the Indian girl did not budge.

  Maman put down her broom, surprised. “Tell her to go, Suzette.” The Indian girl seemed to mind no one but Suzette.

  Suzette gave one despairing glance in the direction of Grandmère and Papa Jules.

  At last Papa Jules spoke. “Maman, she right, Susu,” he said. “We can’t pick up all the basket-selling Indians in the woods. They’d eat us outa house and home.”

  Suzette let the girl’s hand drop.

  “Go!” she said, in a low voice.

  The Indian girl walked out the door.

  That day, Suzette sat hunched disconsolately on the wharf in front of her home. The flies, gnats and mosquitoes nipped her bare arms and legs. The sun shone furiously hot. The bayou was as still as a mirrored lake. She baited her lines but she caught no fish.

  The next day she had better luck.

  “Maman,” she announced, “I take the skiff today and sell my fish by M’sieu’ Guidry, across the by’a.”

  “Across the by’a, mais non!” cried Maman. “W’at you t’ink, Suzette! Me, I die of fright to see you alone in the skiff. You drown yourself like little Tit-tit. You can’t never go in the skiff alone. You take your fish to Père Eugène like you all the time do.”

  “It too hot to walk so far,” complained Suzette.

  “But Suzette, you like all the time to go by Père Eugène,” said Maman.

  “Me, I let Felix row the skiff,” suggested Suzette.

  “That leetle terrible? And dump you in the by’a?”

  “I don’t wanna go by Père Eugène no more,” wailed Suzette. “He en’t give me tobac’ for my Papa.”

  “Clothilde, let her go ’cross the by’a if she want to!” thundered Papa Jules from the bedroom.

  “’Cross the by’a? In the skiff? Alone?” cried Maman. “Oh, my pore leetle Suzette! She is drown’ already, like pore leetle Tit-tit! Oh, it a cruel Papa she has, to t’ink of such a t’ing.”

  “Ambrose can row her over,” said Papa Jules, quietly. “Suzette, she not buy groceries from now on, she keep her fish money for her own self. Ambrose, he take his fish to Père Eugène for the groceries.”

  “Me, I die of fright!” cried Maman. “I die of fright!”

  Maman was so upset she did not even trust careful Ambrose. She leaned far out over the pot-shelf where she was washing dishes and cried: “Be careful, Ambrose! Don’t tip the skiff and drown your sister, Ambrose!”

  Maman was wide and fat. She leaned hard on the dish-pan and tipped it so the water ran all over the front of her dress and apron. It ran over the pot-shelf and down to the ground.

  So Suzette no longer went to Père Eugène’s store. Each day Suzette and Ambrose fished fish and fished crabs and then Ambrose rowed her across the bayou. Ambrose was fourteen years old and big and strong. He was a dark-faced, quiet boy, with sad eyes. He worked hard, played little and never had much to say. He could handle a pirogue or a skiff as well as a man, and was trying hard to fill his father’s place.

  Monsieur Guidry was kind—he was a good friend of Papa Jules. He had a sugar-cane plantation on the other side of the bayou. He bought all of Suzette’s catch without question and paid her generously. Each day when she came home, she put the coins in a little box which she kept under her mattress. Suzette saved every penny, for she knew that Marteel would some day be back and she laid her plans carefully.

  It was across the bayou that she found the Indian girl again. One day, after selling her fish, she saw a figure standing at the edge of the woods.

  “Marteel! Marteel!” cried Suzette.

  Ambrose said nothing, but when they came back to the skiff, he balked. “En’t takin’ no Injun girl ’cross the by’a!” he announced.

  “Please, Ambrose!” begged Suzette. “She en’t got no home nor no maman …”

  “Our Maman, she say she don’t want no dirty Injun ’round the house,” said Ambrose, stubbornly. “You comin’ home?”

  “If Marteel can’t come, me, I stay by her,” said Suzette.

  Without a word, Ambrose picked up the oars and rowed across the bayou. Suzette watched. She saw him pull up at the wharf in front of their home. The houses along the bayou front had never looked so small before, and the bayou itself had never looked so wide.

  Suzette looked at Marteel. “You swim?” she asked.

  “Yes, Marteel swim like a fish,” said the Indian girl, with a smile.

  “Me, I can’t,” said Suzette. “My Maman, she don’t want me to swim in the by’a, ’count of all the gar-fish to bite me.”

  So they could not get across by swimming.

  They sat on the soggy bank. There was no levee on this side and the shore was wet and muddy. Suzette looked down at the mud on her legs and feet.

  “My Maman’s gonna run me, if she see all this mud.”

  She dipped her feet in the water and washed them off. The Indian girl did the same.

  “We’ll shout!” said Suzette. “Somebody will hear and come for us. I t’ink my Papa, he sit in a rocking chair on the front gallery today. He hear us and send Ambrose back.”

  But Ambrose did not come. It was another, larger skiff that picked them up and took them across. There were two men in it. They heard Suzette’s shouts and pulled in by the shore.

  “The dish-pan peddlers!” cried Suzette, joyfully. “It’s ’Tit Pierre and Gros Paul! I en’t seen them for a long time, I en’t.”

  Little Peter and Big Paul were brothers, well known up and down the bayous. In their skiff they carried a variety of dry-goods, shoes, notions, cooking pots and dish-pans. Little Peter was small and thin, Big Paul large and fat. Little Peter did the buying and selling. Big Paul rowed the skiff and did whatever Little Peter told him to.

  “Bonté!” cried ’Tit Pierre, in surprise. “If it en’t Mam’selle Suzette Durand herself, perched over here on the edge of the by’a like a leetle lost prairie chick!”

  “Oh, M’sieu’ Pierre!” cried Suzette. “Please take us over. Ambrose my brother, he went back in the skiff and left us.”

  Gros Paul stood staring at the Indian girl.

  “Git in,” said ’Tit Pierre. “We was aimin’ to stop by your house when we hear you callin’. First I thought you had fell in, then I saw you was up on shore.”

  Suzette stepped in.

  “We take her too?” asked Gros Paul, pointing to Marteel with his thumb.

  “She stayin’ by me, to my house,” explained Suzette, hastily.

  “Git in, then,” said ’Tit Pierre.

  Marteel stepped in and the two girls sat down on the piles of dry-goods. It did not take long to cross. Gros Paul slid his skiff up beside the wharf and moored it. Ambrose was not in sight, nor was his skiff. Papa Jules was not on the front gallery. No one was to be seen up or down the bayou path. Little Village seemed to be taking its afternoon nap.

  Gros Paul picked up a large tin dish-pan, pounded on it with an iron spoon and made a loud banging. The sleepy houses suddenly woke up. People opened their front doors and looked. Children and barking dogs came running. A group of boys collected, Felix and Jacques among them.

  “I go find my Maman,” said Suzette. “She never like to miss you, M’sieu’ Pierre. My Maman say, she want to buy lace and buttons for my big sister Lala’s new dress.”

  The visit of the skiff peddlers was always an event. Père Eugène did not sell much dry-goods or many notions at his store. He preferred trading with the men in furs, moss and al
ligator hides. He had little patience with women and their needs. The skiff peddlers, on the other hand, came straight from New Orleans, twenty odd miles to the northward, with the very latest printed calicoes and trinkets chosen to please the ladies of the bayous.

  But, exciting as their visit was, Suzette did not lose her head completely. Not for a single minute did she forget her new friend, Marteel. She knew she must get her out of sight before all the customers came.

  “Come with me. Quick, Marteel!” she called.

  Felix and Jacques stared at the Indian girl as she climbed out of the skiff. Suzette ran swiftly with her round the house till they came to the clump of bushes back of the shed.

  “Wait!” she said, as before.

  The girl crouched down and waited.

  Suzette hurried into the house, but both Maman and Grandmère were gone. Papa Jules was asleep in his bed. The banging of the dish-pan had not wakened him. Suzette tiptoed past, went to her cot and, taking out her money box, counted the coins. Then she hurried out to the wharf again.

  “My Maman and my Grandmère, they not at home,” she told ’Tit Pierre. “They gone by my Tante Thérèse to sew Lala’s new dress on her sewing machine. You know M’sieu’ Lodod Durand, yes?”

  “All the ladies together!” nodded ’Tit Pierre. “It good, that. We sell out everyt’ing, we empty the skiff!”

  Gros Paul untied the rope and took up the oars.

  “But wait! Don’t go yet!” cried Suzette. “Me, I want somet’ing.”

  “W’at!” laughed ’Tit Pierre. “I almost miss a sale. W’at you want, young leddy, today?”

  “Me, I want eight yard bed ticking … enough to make a mattress cover …” she stammered, “and ten yard cheesecloth for a mosquito bar …” She handed her money to the peddler. “It money enough?”

  “W’at! Real money?” joked ’Tit Pierre. “No hides today? No mink and coon skins? Suzette, she gettin’ rich, n’est pas?”

  Gros Paul roared loudly as he measured off the cloth.

  “It … it money enough?” asked Suzette.

  “Just right! How you figger it out?” ’Tit Pierre looked at the money before he put it in his pocket, then he added, soberly, “You en’t steal this, Mam’selle, no?”