The Mysteries of New Orleans (The Longfellow Series of American Languages and Literatures)

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  Though it was on unpromising terrain, the farm was frequently subject to floods, allowing the German gardener to produce the finest fruits. Even those that normally prospered only in stony soil grew here to the loveliest maturity. There were two rows of juicy gold-blotched apricots, besides sweet little Bredas and Alsaces. Next to them along the bayou ran Reine Hortense, bigarreau noir, and the early-ripening morello cherries.

  One can even find here several varieties of plum which had only rarely prospered on the Kaskaskia River. Admiral Rigny and Prince of Wales plums decorated the table of a Lucas or a Chouteau in late autumn in St. Louis.5 They were never to be seen at fruit wholesalers, for Mr. Watson knew only too well that his rarer fruits would bring substantial profit from the right customer.

  The corn seen standing in various parts of the farm was only grown as fodder for the cows and horses, of which there were many. Mr. Watson had planted more than fifty acres of wheat this year, which had already begun to yellow.

  Near the farmhouse, shadowed by two enormous sycamore trees, an effort was underway to raise twenty or thirty feet of castor beans.

  There were twelve acres of potatoes and three of tomatoes, already red in some places, that reached in a narrow band all the way to the Mississippi, bordered by the thick forest.

  Part of this forest had already fallen to the ax, and where the woodland was receding the standing stumps were in various states of being pulled up and removed. Hundreds of feet of the most splendid hickory board either lay on flatboats or still stood between the clearings of the decimated woods.

  More than twenty or thirty workers had been occupied for several weeks. Some cut the trees, others stripped them down for lumbering, and others pulled up the stumps and cleared the fields of the stubborn mustang grapevines.

  The reason for all this activity was that a company was planning to run a ferry to the Illinois bank.

  This location was most suitable, so it had been chosen for development.

  The path leading to the ferry landing had taken a part of Mr. Watson’s farm, a part that one can imagine did not go for a low price.

  As a result, he had to build his fences a bit closer, but his farm still remained the largest on Bissell’s Island.

  Mr. Watson had been a widower for some years, living in seclusion with his daughter, a maiden as pretty as a picture, and he left the place only when he took his vegetable wagon across the bayou bridge to the market in St. Louis, where he sold his produce in person.

  He only took workers with him when he was hauling chickens, turkeys, and other fowl.

  Sarah, the farmer’s daughter, had not yet completed her fifteenth year. She was one of those beings who only enchant a fresh, green environment, one surrounded by flowers, trees, and bushes. She was a charm to look at as she slipped through the cornstalks, spreading her plump little hands to get through more quickly.

  Towns and the environment of a more refined world left her cold.

  Sarah was one of those light blondes tending to red. Yet she had a snow-white, pure, utterly faultless complexion. Her feet were not the smallest, and she was well-rounded and plump around the ankles. Her toes were like her fingers, short and fleshy, with the rare property of being able to pick up a corncob, a tomato, or any other round object from the ground.

  It was always amazing to see her do this.

  She would careen now one way, then another, fresh, lively, cheerful, without any artifice. If her father or one of the workers was busy in the fields or the vegetable garden performing some sort of task, she loved to sneak up unnoticed from behind and upset them with poke from a twig or a piece of wood, then turn tail or sneak behind a tree or bush.

  The German workers on Mr. Watson’s farm spoke of her among themselves as “our Gretchen in the bush.”

  Among her father’s workers was a Hungarian who had appeared on the farm several weeks before in rather forlorn shape. Mr. Watson had given him work in the woods.

  This man, who did not appear to be over thirty, had one of those mysterious faces that are the despair even of the greatest physiognomists. His heavy black eyebrows hung low over his dark eyes, giving him a sinister appearance.

  His red woolen sailor’s shirt and a large handkerchief of yellow silk, which usually fastened his trousers below the waist, gave him a storybook appearance.

  A sensitive observer could not fail to notice any disturbance of his normal temperament, since it would be announced by a sudden uncanny flickering of his usually steady gaze and a mock turning-down of the corners of his mouth. He tried to hide his disturbance as much as possible, and he might appear calm if he thought no one was staring at him.

  Such persons are no rarity.

  A diabolical spark often flickers in the hearts of the strictest stoics, who seem the most peaceful, resigned persons in their symposia. This spark occasionally spreads to their entire beings like a flash of phosphorus, often bringing about something horrible—without our being able to account for it.

  Little Sarah was not indifferent to Lajos—that was the Hungarian’s name. She liked his long, black hair, his raven-black mustache and goatee. When he was engaged felling trees, she often rushed to him, bringing him a bit of ham or cornbread covered with syrup, sometimes along with a little flask of the good cognac her father served up only to rare visitors.

  Little Sarah’s bold, lovable attachment made no small impression on Lajos. The buxom little Yankee girl with the pale light-blonde hair and dimples on her hands had caught his attention from his first moment on the farm, and in his moments alone he had grieved that he could only take the role of a worker here; he would gladly have played that of a splendid lover.

  The day on which Sarah would lose her heart grew ever closer.

  It was on a Sunday when her father left at 4 A.M. with one of his workers and a fully-loaded wagon, crossing the bayou bridge and passing down the length of Broadway to the market in St. Louis.

  Watson wanted to have breakfast in town, so Lajos and Sarah sat alone at the laden table.

  “How do you like my father?” Sarah began the conversation.

  “Mister Watson is a very active man and has a very good heart. If your father wants to retain me after the felling is over, I would have the greatest desire to learn gardening, and I would like also to take over the heavy work as well,” Lajos replied, throwing a penetrating glance at the girl.

  “Don’t worry,” Sarah replied, “if you wish to stay here, you will only be in agreement with my father’s wishes.”

  “So Mr. Watson has already spoken of keeping me on?”

  “We spoke yesterday evening of keeping you on the farm, in case you did not wish to seek your advancement elsewhere,” the little one contributed pertly, then she continued: “I know very well that our neighbors Mr. Williams and Mr. Carr pay a few more dollars in salary than my father—but the workers are treated poorly. Beyond that, they have several niggers, and not everyone wants to work in such company. At least I can have no regard for any white man who works with niggers. When my mother was alive, my father had five slaves. At my request they were sold, and since then he only keeps white gentlemen on his farm.”

  “That is very nice of your father,” Lajos said, without giving it a thought. But his eyes were constantly concentrated on the little mouth and the hearty eyes of the Yankee girl.

  The first cup of coffee was finished.

  Sarah rose from her chair and approached Lajos with the coffeepot to fill his empty cup.

  The moment was right for the Hungarian.

  As Sarah approached him, he grasped her tenderly on the arm, looked into her face with flaming eyes, and spoke to her in a decisive tone.

  “Sarah, look at me!”

  “Let me pour your coffee first, then I will look at you as much as you like,” Sarah responded with childish openness.

  “Look at me, Sarah!” Lajos repeated, turning aside the hand with the coffeepot.

  “So I’ll look at you, if you force me,” Sarah laughe
d, putting the coffeepot down. “So, so—now I’ve looked at you—now let me pour some for you.”

  “You should look at me once more, my dear Sarah!” The dear was sounded so emphatically that a burning blush rose in Sarah’s cheeks.

  Her little hands and feet trembled.

  The stamen of a blooming flower trembles in the same way when a butterfly first descends upon it.

  Lajos was trembling as well, but with joy at winning the heart of an innocent maiden so easily.

  Lajos knew perfectly well what he was doing.

  As Sarah stood before him, unsteady and speechless, he checked the security of the location, threw a quick glance at the window and the open door, calculated the time of her father’s absence with electric rapidity—in short, all his thoughts concentrated on making poor Sarah a martyr to her own feelings.

  A shot from close by jolted Sarah back to her senses. Lajos turned about in irritation, and as Sarah bolted through the door he pretended to be doing something with the saddle tackle that hung on the wall beside the fireplace.

  In his confusion he shortened the straps, then loosened them, shined the spurs with his shirtsleeve, blew on them, and polished them again.

  When he thought he had held back long enough, he rushed to the door.

  Sarah stood twelve paces away, before an elderly man in light farmer’s clothes who leaned on a shotgun with a very long barrel.

  “That was my General Taylor,” Lajos heard him say to Sarah, “my finest turkey—I had always suspected it flew to your coop. It’s not right of you not to have told me about it, since you know I’ve been looking for it for a week. I think William’s nigger would have plucked his feathers—I would rather have had him alive. Well, in any case—we’ll eat him here.”

  He lifted up the fat bird, its neck virtually torn off by buckshot.

  “I can assure you in all truth,” Sarah pleaded, “that we have never seen your bird within our fences, Mister Carr—you are really doing an injustice to my father when you think that of him. Besides, we have so many turkeys that we could hardly tell if twenty of yours came visiting.”

  “Well, everything is back as it should be. So far as turkeys are concerned, I don’t want to dispute you. Even if yours are more numerous, mine are all five pounds heavier. You don’t really understand how these things are done.”

  “We understand quite well, Mr. Carr. You look only at the thin ones and neglect to look into our coop, where they are fenced in and grow fat. Only today my father took fifty head to the market which were twice as heavy as your General Taylor, with whom you are so obsessed.”

  “Well, well, that’s alright, then,” the farmer calmed her. “But how’s the ferry progressing? It’s been abuilding forever—I cannot imagine what seized your father to make over this fine piece of woods to that bankrupt gang. At least they would have had to pay a bundle for it if it were mine—it isn’t even a proper location for a ferry. The few Dutchmen who cross over from New Bremen6—that’s their total freight!”

  “‘Dutchmen?’” Sarah repeated, “you would do better, Mr. Carr, to put aside your Yankee arrogance. To whom other than this hard-working, honest people you so contemptuously term ‘Dutchmen’ do we owe the current greatness of our state? Who else is responsible for the flourishing condition of our farms in Missouri? Mr. Carr, your niggers only hoe and plant the fields, but Germans must have cleared it and made it suitable for working. Note this once and for all, Mr. Carr, that I will tolerate no further abuse of the Germans, and that in the future you will say Germans and not Dutchmen.”

  The old farmer stroked his chin and said with a smile: “Miss Sarah Watson surely has a beau among the Dutchm … Germans?”

  “Stop it, Mr. Carr,” Sarah gathered herself, “and if you want to eat your General Taylor right here, hand him over and I’ll pluck him. Then you may wait in the front room until my father returns—don’t forget to tell him that he had been keeping your turkey.”

  “I will leave that go,” Mr. Carr responded, “your father is not to be trifled with.”

  “So you did not have the same regard for me?” Sarah asked naively.

  The Hungarian, who had just stepped out of the doorway of the kitchen where he and Sarah had breakfasted, drew the farmer’s full attention.

  He turned to Sarah and asked her, “Who is this man?”

  The sudden shift from their previous topic to the object of her love disconcerted Sarah.

  The farmer commenced inspecting the Hungarian from head to foot, as Lajos turned his face half away, in the direction of St. Louis. Then he looked directly at Sarah. Sarah thought herself betrayed—it suddenly occurred to her that the old farmer had been listening to them. She blushed deeply and played with the leaves of a nearby branch of hazel.

  “Do you know why I’m asking?” he asked.

  “How should I know?” Sarah responded quietly but with irritation.

  “He is a Hungarian, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, Mr. Carr.”

  “Does he work on your farm?”

  “Yes, Mr. Carr.”

  “He’s been with you for four weeks?”

  “Yes, Mr. Carr.”

  “I believe I saw him in St. Louis once.”

  “So, Mr. Carr?”

  “Pay attention to his movements, Miss, he might recognize me yet.”

  The farmer left Sarah and went to the kitchen, at whose threshold stood the Hungarian, who now turned his face toward him.

  “How is the gentleman today?” the farmer greeted Lajos in a mocking voice.

  Once Lajos got a closer look at the farmer, he turned pale and stuttered.

  He quickly recovered his composure.

  “Do not bring me unhappiness, I ask you, sir!” the Hungarian begged, but in such a soft voice that only Mr. Carr, right next to him, could hear it.

  Sarah remained exactly where the farmer had left her. She gazed calmly at the two.

  When she saw Lajos turn pale and perceived how he beseeched the farmer with his eyes, her whole body started to tremble. Now she was certain that old Carr had been eavesdropping, and that for that reason he was interrogating Lajos.

  “Then I will not bring you unhappiness, gentleman,” old Carr responded once more in his mocking tone, “if I tell Sarah’s father how you played the betrayer.”

  “I ask you, sir, do not bring me unhappiness!” the Hungarian begged once more.

  “You want me to spare you, you who sent a poor soldier to ruin for a few measly dollars? Know that it was my nephew you betrayed—scoundrel!” the old farmer shouted in rage.

  Sarah, who had heard old Carr’s last words clearly, and who now saw that it concerned an entirely different matter than she had feared, ran toward the two when she saw the farmer approach Lajos with such a threatening manner.

  Lajos gnashed his teeth and bit his lip bloody in his wrath as the farmer told Sarah: “You know, Miss, that the Justice of the Peace of the Second Ward is my good friend, and that I often sit in his office for hours. So I was with him one afternoon between three and four o’clock when this ‘fine’ gentleman entered and informed my friend that he knew of a deserter, whom he was willing to deliver to Uncle Sam for the standard reward of ten dollars—ten dollars, Miss! My friend asked for the details, and then he learned from the mouth of this fine gentleman that he had taken a voyage from Galveston to New Orleans and then from New Orleans to St. Louis, and that the soldier himself had told him in all confidence that he was a deserter from the Army of the United States.

  “When the Justice of the Peace asked for the name of the soldier, I had to hear that it was my nephew, who had just deserted the dragoons in Texas. I make a significant nod to my friend. He gives him a harsh lecture for shameful betrayal and sends him on his way with the message that he did not mix with such business, but if he wanted his ten dollars he should go to Jefferson Barracks to get them.”7

  “Is that true, sir?” Sarah intervened, turning to Lajos.

  “Miss Watson, I ca
n say nothing more on the matter than that I believe this man is drunk—or …”

  “Drunk?!” the farmer shouted, lunging at the Hungarian, who pressed his fist under the farmer’s chin.

  Sarah threw herself between the fighting men, who were trying to throw each other to the ground.

  A wagon rolled over the bayou bridge.

  Sarah ran crying to meet her father, who jumped from the wagon and rushed to the farmhouse together with his daughter.

  He arrived too late.

  Old Carr lay on the floor covered with blood, rattling his last. The Hungarian was already crossing the fence into the next farm.

  Chapter 3

  THE ASSAULT ON LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE

  “If you want to accompany me to Shellville, my other horse is at your service. You may also take one of these buffalo robes and tie it to the horse’s body with this strap. This rope will do for a bridle, it’s a quiet, gentle horse a five-year-old could ride. I would be happy to let you use my saddle, but see, I’m just used to it, and besides, I need it to haul my goods and keep them in balance while riding—as I said, if you want to accompany me, get Yellow Jack to bring you that horse from his stall. I have a friend in Shellville who can ride it back in the morning, since I’ll not be back for several months. I’ve a notion to take a tour to New Orleans.”

  “I would rather have your Lydia be a wild and spirited beast; she would soon learn respect from my haunches!”

  “I can see from your haunches that you’re not mounting a horse for the first time—but I can assure you that my Lydia was not always so tame and quiet. Four months ago I fled a prairie-fire on Looking-Glass Prairie,8 hoo! How the flames chased us. Just when we thought we’d made it, the wind suddenly turned and drove the lake of fire right into our faces, ‘There!—now where and how?’ thought I. My Lydia whinnied—no, it was no longer a whinny, she howled in fear and terror. Her mane stood on end, like the bristles of a cornered boar. She would have thrown me off if I had not pounded on her snout—she can’t stand that. She stormed forward, me hanging on, and I lost more than two hundred dollars in merchandise. She did not let me rein up until the flames had chased us to Little Creek, where she plunged in and swam across without throwing me. We were saved. Since then she has been quiet and obedient, and she jumps at the sight of a trash fire. Look! That’s the sort of beast she is. I wish you could have met her earlier, you’d never have wanted a better horse. So have them bring her to you. We leave in half an hour, since I want to get going tonight so I can be in Shellville at nine o’clock.”