Short Fiction Kate Chopin (best e reader for android .txt) 📖

of the stairs a very old man stood. His figure was small and shrunken, his hair long and snow-white. He wore a broad, soft felt hat, and a brown plaid shawl across his bent shoulders. A tall, graceful girl stood beside him; she was clad in a warm-colored blue stuff gown. She seemed to be expostulating with the old gentleman, who evidently wanted to descend the stairs to meet the approaching visitor. Before Bartner had had time to do more than lift his hat, Monsieur Jean Ba had thrown his trembling arms about the young man and was exclaiming in his quavering old tones: “À la fin! mon fils! à la fin!” Tears started to the girl’s eyes and she was rosy with confusion. “Oh, escuse him, sir; please escuse him,” she whisperingly entreated, gently striving to disengage the old gentleman’s arms from around the astonished Bartner. But a new line of thought seemed fortunately to take possession of Monsieur Jean Ba, for he moved away and went quickly, pattering like a baby, down the gallery. His fleecy white hair streamed out on the soft breeze, and his brown shawl flapped as he turned the corner.

Bartner, left alone with the girl, proceeded to introduce himself and to explain his presence there.

“Oh! Mr. Fred Bartna of New Orleans? The commission merchant!” she exclaimed, cordially extending her hand. “So well known in Natchitoches parish. Not our merchant, Mr. Bartna,” she added, naively, “but jus’ as welcome, all the same, at my gran’father’s.”

Bartner felt like kissing her, but he only bowed and seated himself in the big chair which she offered him. He wondered what was the longest time it could take to mend a buggy tire.

She sat before him with her hands pressed down into her lap, and with an eagerness and pretty air of being confidential that were extremely engaging, explained the reasons for her grandfather’s singular behavior.

Years ago, her uncle Alcibiade, in going away to the war, with the cheerful assurance of youth, had promised his father that he would return to eat Christmas dinner with him. He never returned. And now, of late years, since Monsieur Jean Ba had begun to fail in body and mind, that old, unspoken hope of long ago had come back to live anew in his heart. Every Christmas Day he watched for the coming of Alcibiade.

“Ah! if you knew, Mr. Bartna, how I have endeavor’ to distrac’ his mine from that thought! Weeks ago, I tole to all the negroes, big and li’le, ‘If one of you dare to say the word, Christmas gif’, in the hearing of Monsieur Jean Baptiste, you will have to answer it to me.’ ”

Bartner could not recall when he had been so deeply interested in a narration.

“So las’ night, Mr. Bartna, I said to grandpère, ‘Pépère, you know tomorrow will be the great feas’ of la Trinité; we will read our litany together in the morning and say a chapelet.’ He did not answer a word; il est malin, oui. But this morning at daylight he was rapping his cane on the back gallery, calling together the negroes. Did they not know it was Christmas Day, an’ a great dinner mus’ be prepare’ for his son Alcibiade, whom he was especting!”

“And so he has mistaken me for his son Alcibiade. It is very unfortunate,” said Bartner, sympathetically. He was a good-looking, honest-faced young fellow.

The girl arose, quivering with an inspiration. She approached Bartner, and in her eagerness laid her hand upon his arm.

“Oh, Mr. Bartna, if you will do me a favor! The greates’ favor of my life!”

He expressed his absolute readiness.

“Let him believe, jus’ for this one Christmas day, that you are his son. Let him have that Christmas dinner with Alcibiade, that he has been longing for so many year’.”

Bartner’s was not a puritanical conscience, but truthfulness was a habit as well as a principle with him, and he winced. “It seems to me it would be cruel to deceive him; it would not be”⁠—he did not like to say “right,” but she guessed that he meant it.

“Oh, for that,” she laughed, “you may stay as w’ite as snow, Mr. Bartna. I will take all the sin on my conscience. I assume all the responsibility on my shoulder’.”

“Esmée!” the old man was calling as he came trotting back, “Esmée, my child,” in his quavering French, “I have ordered the dinner. Go see to the arrangements of the table, and have everything faultless.”

The dining-room was at the end of the house, with windows opening upon the side and back galleries. There was a high, simply carved wooden mantelpiece, bearing a wide, slanting, old-fashioned mirror that reflected the table and its occupants. The table was laden with an overabundance. Monsieur Jean Ba sat at one end, Esmée at the other, and Bartner at the side.

Two “grif” boys, a big black woman and a little mulatto girl waited upon them; there was a reserve force outside within easy call, and the little black and yellow faces kept bobbing up constantly above the windowsills. Windows and doors were open, and a fire of hickory branches blazed on the hearth.

Monsieur Jean Ba ate little, but that little greedily and rapidly; then he stayed in rapt contemplation of his guest.

“You will notice, Alcibiade, the flavor of the turkey,” he said. “It is dressed with pecans; those big ones from the tree down on the bayou. I had them gathered expressly.” The delicate and rich flavor of the nut was indeed very perceptible.

Bartner had a stupid impression of acting on the stage, and had to pull himself together every now and then to throw off the stiffness of the amateur actor. But this discomposure amounted almost to paralysis when he found Mademoiselle Esmée taking the situation as seriously as her grandfather.

“Mon Dieu! uncle Alcibiade, you are not eating! Mais w’ere have you lef’ your appetite? Corbeau, fill your young master’s glass. Doralise, you are neglecting