Short Fiction Kate Chopin (best e reader for android .txt) đ
- Author: Kate Chopin
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The helpless, shrivelled old negress sat in the depths of a large, ruddy-fashioned chair. A loosely hanging unbleached cotton gown enveloped her mite of a figure. What was visible of her hair beneath the bandana turban, looked like white sheepâs wool. She wore round, silver-rimmed spectacles, which gave her an air of wisdom and respectability, and she held in her hand the branch of a hickory sapling, with which she kept mosquitoes and flies at bay, and even chickens and pigs that sometimes penetrated the heart of her domain.
Odalie walked straight up to the old woman and kissed her on the cheek.
âWell, Aunt Pinky, yere I am,â she announced with evident self-complacency, turning herself slowly and stiffly around like a mechanical dummy. In one hand she held her prayerbook, fan and handkerchief, in the other the blue parasol, still open; and on her plump hands were blue cotton mitts. Aunt Pinky beamed and chuckled; Odalie hardly expected her to be able to do more.
âNow you saw me,â the child continued. âI reckon you satisfied. I musâ go; I ainât got a minute to wasâe.â But at the threshold she turned to inquire, bluntly:
âWâereâs Pug?â
âPug,â replied Aunt Pinky, in her tremulous old-womanâs voice. âSheâs gone to chuâch; done gone; she done gone,â nodding her head in seeming approval of Pugâs action.
âTo church!â echoed Odalie with a look of consternation settling in her round eyes.
âShe gone to chuâch,â reiterated Aunt Pinky. âSay she kainât miss chuâch on de fifteentâ; de debble gwine pester her twell jedgment, she miss chuâch on de fifteentâ.â
Odalieâs plump cheeks fairly quivered with indignation and she stamped her foot. She looked up and down the long, dusty road that skirted the river. Nothing was to be seen save the blue cart with its dejected looking mule and patient occupants. She walked to the end of the gallery and called out to a negro boy whose black bullet-head showed up in bold relief against the white of the cotton patch:
âHe, Baptiste! Wâereâs yoâ ma? Ask yoâ ma if she canât come set with Aunt Pinky.â
âMammy, she gone to chuâch,â screamed Baptiste in answer.
âBontĂ©! wâatâs taken you all darkies with yoâ âchurchâ today? You come along yere Baptiste anâ set with Aunt Pinky. That Pug! Iâm goinâ to make yoâ ma wear her out foâ that trick of hersâ âleavinâ Aunt Pinky like that.â
But at the first intimation of what was wanted of him, Baptiste dipped below the cotton like a fish beneath water, leaving no sight nor sound of himself to answer Odalieâs repeated calls. Her mother and sister were beginning to show signs of impatience.
âBut, I canât go,â she cried out to them. âItâs nobody to stay with Aunt Pinky. I canât leave Aunt Pinky like that, to fall out of her chair, maybe, like she already fell out once.â
âYou goinâ to miss mass on the fifteenth, you, Odalie! Wâat you thinkinâ about?â came in shrill rebuke from her sister. But her mother offering no objection, the boy lost not a moment in starting the mule forward at a brisk trot. She watched them disappear in a cloud of dust; and turning with a dejected, almost tearful countenance, re-entered the room.
Aunt Pinky seemed to accept her reappearance as a matter of course; and even evinced no surprise at seeing her remove her hat and mitts, which she laid carefully, almost religiously, on the bed, together with her book, fan and handkerchief.
Then Odalie went and seated herself some distance from the old woman in her own small, low rocking-chair. She rocked herself furiously, making a great clatter with the rockers over the wide, uneven boards of the cabin floor; and she looked out through the open door.
âPuggy, she done gone to chuâch; done gone. Say de debble gwine pester her twell jedgmentâ ââ
âYou done tole me that, Aunt Pinky; neva mine; donât leâs talk about it.â
Aunt Pinky thus rebuked, settled back into silence and Odalie continued to rock and stare out of the door.
Once she arose, and taking the hickory branch from Aunt Pinkyâs nerveless hand, made a bold and sudden charge upon a little pig that seemed bent upon keeping her company. She pursued him with flying heels and loud cries as far as the road. She came back flushed and breathless and her curls hanging rather limp around her face; she began again to rock herself and gaze silently out of the door.
âYou gwine make yoâ fusâ câmmunion?â
This seemingly sober inquiry on the part of Aunt Pinky at once shattered Odalieâs illhumor and dispelled every shadow of it. She leaned back and laughed with wild abandonment.
âMais wâat you thinkinâ about. Aunt Pinky? How you donât remember I made my firsâ communion lasâ year, with this same dress wâat maman let out the tuck,â holding up the altered skirt for Aunt Pinkyâs inspection. âAnâ with this same petticoat wâat maman added this ruffle anâ crochetâ edge; excepâ I had a wâite sash.â
These evidences proved beyond question convincing and seemed to satisfy Aunt Pinky. Odalie rocked as furiously as ever, but she sang now, and the swaying chair had worked its way nearer to the old woman.
âYou gwine git marâied?â
âI declare, Aunt Pinky,â said Odalie, when she had ceased laughing and was wiping her eyes, âI declare, sometimeâ I think you gittinâ plumb foolish. How you expecâ me to git married wâen Iâm onây thirteen?â
Evidently Aunt Pinky did not know why or how she expected anything so preposterous; Odalieâs holiday attire that filled her with contemplative rapture, had doubtless incited her to these vagaries.
The child now drew her chair quite close to the old womanâs knee after she had gone out to the rear of the cabin to
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