Walking towards her now on the sunset lighted sands, evidently taking great delight in wetting her delicate slippers, came a fair-haired, rose-tinted creature, in an ethereal film of fluffy lawn and flower-covered hat. Natalie surveyed her curiously. She knew the type well; the delicate summer boarder who came to idle time away, was afraid of everything under the sun, and generally treated Natalie either with supercilious indifference or with contemptuous patronage. She knew them and hated them accordingly. But this one must be of a different kind, else how did she get down that perilous climb, and why was she unaccompanied by maid or mother? The newcomer was also surveying Natalie with admiration plainly depicted in her eyes.
Contrary to her usual custom, the queen approached the trespasser and said, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” She spoke in French, and the blonde shook her head and said sadly, “You’ll have to speak English.”
Natalie’s self-importance rose in a corresponding degree as the girl’s eyes surveyed her healthful frame with wonderment, and she repeated the question in a mixture of bad English and gestures.
Olivia replied that her family had moved into the house at the corner for the summer. The big house hidden in red roses and magnolia trees.
“The Torrés house?” asked Natalie.
Olivia nodded her head wisely, and discussing the beauties of the place, they walked along the sunset sands. They had just reached the stage when confidences were in progress, when a sharp voice above their heads caused them to look up. They were passing beneath the fishing wharf of the house, and a fretful looking, over-dressed lady with a white lace parasol was leaning over the railing.
“Olivia!” she screamed sharply, “What are you doing down there? Come up here this minute.”
Olivia started nervously; it was evident that she was afraid of her mother.
“How can I get up?” she inquired.
“You’ll have to climb, yes,” said Natalie, “cause the nearest slope is a leetle more than a half mile down.”
So boosted up by Natalie’s strong, bared arms, and clinging to the scrubby bushes that grew through the cracks of the breakwater, Olivia gained the beach smiling, flushed, triumphant, only to be met with a scowl on the face of the over-dressed lady.
“What do you mean,” she said sharply, “by acting like a regular tomboy, and running about with such a person already?”
Olivia hung her head, but said nothing, only walked into the house, and sat on her father’s knee.
“Papa,” she spoke slowly, and with tears in her eyes, “I climbed down the breakwater just now, and met such a nice girl on the sands. She’s what they call a ‘Cajan’ here; awfully pretty, and nice, and so smart, papa! She speaks such good French, I didn’t dare answer her in anything but English. Her name is Natalie Leblanc, and she lives down where the bayou meets the lake. She told me that she never liked summer boarders because they were always so stuck-up, but she liked me,
because I seemed to have some sense. And she’s so healthy, papa, and strong, why she almost lifted me over the breakwater. And, papa, please sir, mayn’t I go with her? She says she’ll show me all the beauty places, and teach me how to swim and row and fish and all that.”
“Whew?” replied Mr. Spiers, “you two must have flown into each other’s arms to have learned all that.”
“She’s a nice girl, papa, fourteen years, only you’d never think so. She’s so much taller and stouter than I am.”
At the supper table that night Mr. Spiers said to his wife, “Carrie, I want you to let Olivia take off those fancy clothes and get some blood in her face; she looks like a wax doll. Let her run and jump and climb and get sunburned. It’ll do her good.”
“Gracious me, John,” exclaimed Mrs. Spiers, “you’ll have the child a regular hoyden; when will she learn dignity?”
“Six years from now is time enough. I hate these little old women that are coming up now. Let her go with the natives, they’ll teach her more healthy topics of conversation than that fashionable city set.”
Olivia said nothing, but her pale little face lighted with pleasure, and she flashed a grateful look at her father across the table. Next morning, Mr. Spiers went back to the city, and the family settled in their beautiful, rose-embowered, rambling old home for the summer.
Natalie was swinging dreamily on her front gallery in a hammock made of barrel staves and sacking. A peaceful noonday silence hung over all save for the persistent trilling of a mockingbird in the moss-laden oak tree, and an occasional hoarse grunt from an alligator in the black waters of the bayou. The persimmon tree shook a shower of snowy fragrant blossoms at its foot, as the breezes that came from Nott’s Point swept its branches. It was a quaint little, one-sided house, shingle-roofed, and moss-covered, its gray sides guiltless of paint. But the wide gallery that went all the way around the house was scrubbed white, and sprinkled after the good old fashion, with white sand, while the walk that led from the battered gate was sanded carefully, swept clean, and bordered with precise rows of poppies and larkspurs. Natalie’s eyes closed as she dreamily answered the mockingbird’s trills with snatches of a Creole melody.
A timid knock roused her to a standing position, and there half opening the gate, stood Olivia.
“Entrez, entrez!” cried Natalie impulsively, “Oh, mais, ma foi, you look nice, you seem sensible now,” with an approving glance at Olivia’s gingham dress, white sunbonnet and sand shoes. “Stay with me all the day, yes, and we shall have such fun, such a nice time, yes, we will.”
So Olivia stayed, and was introduced to the grandmother Mme. Leblanc, very old and dignified and gentle. She was escorted proudly around the big yard with its duck pond and plum orchard; initiated into the mysteries of the artesian well. In Mandeville, you know slow little town as it is, everyone uses the artesian well in preference to anything else, so that every one has most clear, cold, and sparkling water at all times. This one of Natalie’s fell into a big stone basin, overgrown with scarlet creepers, and waterlillies on the clear pool. Upon the stone beneath the trickling stream there was a glass, and Natalie explained how glasses could be colored by simply letting them stay under the action of the water for a day, then the sulphur and iron would turn the white into a clear amber with iridescent lights throughout. Within the old-fashioned kitchen there were many glasses which Natalie had colored, and nothing more daintily clear could be imagined.
This was only the beginning of a close intimacy between the girls. There were long rambles down the bayou shores into the piney woods of the old oak, that stood sentinel-like over the water’s edge, intimacies with the quaint Indians in the St. Tammany settlement; rowings around the lake’s edges and up the bayou in a dory, singing French songs that Natalie could make sound so prettily; swims in the brown lake water; a healthy brownness in Olivia’s face, and a pleased sparkle about Natalie in the newfound affection that was so strange to her.
But she could not be induced to visit Olivia’s home at the Torrés place. “Madame, your maman, cares not for me,” she would say in response to Olivia’s entreaties to come to the house, “and I think it better to stay away. You come to me, we will be happy, yes.”
When Mr. Spiers came over on the steamer Saturday evening to stay until Monday morning, nothing pleased him better than to see his “little country girl” so healthy, though the stylish mother grieved to see the unfashionable tan on the girl’s cheeks.
One day, however, Natalie wanted Olivia for a piney woods ramble to gather pine cones which would be made into picture frames. So with bonnet and basket, she swallowed her pride, and trudged up the beach to the Torrés place. Mrs. Spiers leaned over the picket fence with a bored expression and a frown. It was dull in this unfashionable town with nothing of interest save the daily watch for the arrival of the New Camelia, which came puffing across the lake’s bosom every evening, the engine’s arms working up and down with monotonous precision. One regatta of very miniature proportions, with a very tame hop at Colomés’ hotel, a da
ily drive to the post office, with an occasional visitor constituted the round of pleasures for the season. Mrs. Spiers wanted to go home, but Olivia wanted to stay, and Olivia generally had her way with her father. Natalie’s voice aroused Mrs. Spiers from an unpleasant reverie.
“Is Oleevia home?”
She looked up crossly. “Olivia?” she said.
“Yes, madame,” and Natalie gave her one of her most polite French bows, while Mrs. Spiers drew herself up haughtily.
“I think you are making a mistake,” she said icily, “you probably mean Miss Olivia.”
“Yes, madame, I mean Ma’amselle Oleevia Spiers.”
At this moment, the subject of discussion tripped down the flower-lined walk of the old-fashioned garden.
“Oh, Natalie,” she cried joyously, and would have kissed her friend, but the mother held her back.
“Do you mean to tell me, Olivia, that this—this—person calls you by your first name as if she were your equal? Do you permit that?”
Both girls’ faces crimsoned; the one with a fair flush of mortification, the other with a darker tint of injured pride and anger.
“Mama—” began Olivia pleadingly, but Mrs. Spiers was thoroughly angry now.
“In the future, girl,” she continued addressing Natalie, “I want you to call my daughter Miss Olivia. I require that of all inferiors.”
Natalie’s dark-tressed head rose proudly, “I am not an inferior, madame,” she replied. “In age and in education, I am Oleevia’s equal, yes, and in birth, and breeding, I am superior to madame herself,” and walked away proudly, swinging her gay-colored Indian basket with erect head, while Olivia burst into shamed tears, and was promptly hustled inside.
Natalie did not go to the woods to get the pine cones, but walked swiftly home and threw herself moodily into the homemade hammock. “They are all alike,” she mused, “these city people with their airs, and I was foolish to try and be friendly. Serves me right, yes. Mais, much as I like,” clenching her fists, “I’d pop before I’d call her mademoiselle, ah, non, non!”
Thus ended the pleasant intimacy between the girls, and Natalie went on in her old way, rowing her dory into the bayou, and fishing for the beautiful trout in its black waters; queening it over the children in the village, and dreaming the hot hours of the day away in the hammock or under the big oak. On Sundays, she would meet Olivia at the quaint little old church on the back road, and smile pleasantly as she knelt to tell her beads, or bowed at the tinkling of the hoarse, little host-bell.
The summer passed away, and merged into the autumn months; the poppies blazed red in the gardens, and the goldenrod gleamed in the woods and hedges. From all sides sounded the crack of the hunter’s rifle, and the crackling of dropping nuts on the brown leaves in the crisp, clear air. It was pecan threshing time, and all the small town was busy in the work of threshing the pecan trees and packing the long brown nuts into barrels for shipping. Natalie’s time was so taken with helping to thresh trees, gathering in the autumn-tinted persimmons and paddling in the swampy lagoons to shoot the small birds that flocked on the water’s edge that Olivia was almost forgotten.
It was on a Sunday evening that a strong southeast wind came with a rush and roar over the angry waters of the lake from Nott’s Point, and sent the heavy swell booming high against the breakwater. Natalie’s little kingdom down on the sands was completely submerged in about eight feet of water, and the angry waves tossed up onto the shore, dashing clouds of spray into the very houses.
All the population of Mandeville was out on the beach, they dared not go on any pier, for every one of them, even to the steamer landing seemed in imminent danger of being swept away at any moment. Everyone was watching the brave little New Camelia as she battled against the wind and waves coming from Covington and the Tchefuncta River past Mandeville on the way to New Orleans. Again and again, shrilly tooting her displeasure did she skim around the landing, endeavoring to find a stopping place, but in vain, and after a final shrill squeal, she started towards New Orleans, now bounding high on the crest of a wave, now delving deep into a trough, the engine arms frantically waving up and down. Natalie, with heavy black hair, wind-blown and tangled stood in the midst of a crowd of her friends talking loudly with the rest so as to be heard above the wind and water, and at the same time furtively watching the evident distress of Mrs. Spiers and Olivia, who stood apart and wrung their hands with fright.
Everyone remembers until yet, that awful Sunday night. How in the pitchy darkness the fearful southeast wind blowing in the waters from the Gulf of Mexico through the Rigolets, upturned immense centurion oaks, and crushed solid old houses as though they were so many eggshells; how the cattle bellowed as they were swept away into the writhing, tossing waters, and how on the Monday, when the slow daylight dawned over the frightened, praying town, it revealed a complete submergment of four feet, with natives perched in every possible place, and the angry lake still tossing its heavy swells over the crushed breakwater, and dashing logs, and wood, remnants of piers and bathhouses into one’s very bedroom.
Natalie’s house had escaped, and the water yet lacked three inches of being in the rooms; so cheerfully making the nervous grandmother comfortable, she took her dory from its place on the back gallery, and paddled out into the desolate, frightened Louisiana Venice to give her helping smile to the distressed natives, with offers of her home to those whom falling trees or wild waves had made homeless. Picking up struggling chickens from stray bushes, where bedraggled and wild-eyed they had sought refuge, and a mewing, clawing kitten, and piling them all in the stern, too frightened to fight with each other, she rowed up the canal that had once been the main street until she came to Olivia’s house. A sudden impulse caused her to slip her oars, and look up into the windows where she saw Olivia’s white, frightened face.
“Natalie,” called the girl, and ran out on the gallery, while the dory paddled into the ruined yard, “Oh Natalie, mama is so frightened! She is wild to go home on the Camelia, see, it is coming over now, and Mr. Colomés and Mr. Mathias have all been here, telling her she can’t possibly get to the boat, and she’s having hysterics, and oh, Natalie, I’m so frightened!” and she clung to the dory wildly.
At that moment, Mrs. Spiers came out on the gallery followed by M’sieu Colomés, the hotel man, who with shrugs and gesticulations was saying, “Madame, is ver’ unwise, ver’ unwise; mais, non, madame will surely drown if she attempts to catch the bateau.”
But madame was determined, so with a final shrug at the perversity of “dose Americain,” M’sieu Colomés jumped into his pirogue and paddled away in disgust, determining to wash his hands of the whole affair. Madame turned to Natalie with a despairing gesture.
“You can row, Natalie,” she pleaded, “take us to the landing.”
“Ah,” thought Natalie, ‘I am not ‘that person’ now.” But she said nothing, only turned and looked out upon the waste of waters. As far as the eye could reach the lake rolled in long, heavy, groundswells that sobbed in sullen anger under a gray sky at the mischief they had done. About a hundred feet from the gallery stood a row of slender storm-swept saplings outlining the edge of the former breakwater. Just at this line, the swells broke sharply throwing lines of foam into the inundated streets. The brave little Camelia was puffing and working in another attempt to reach the landing, but this time from New Orleans. The landing a halfmile away showed out into the angry waters a broken pile of lumber, the pier reaching to the shore had been reduced to stumps.
Natalie shaded her eyes, and took in the details of the scene at a single glance.
“Eet might be posseeble,” she said musingly, “to row down the strit, yes, to the landing pier, then try the waves, but it would be dangerous, yes. Madame, the danger is over, stay in Mandeville until the water goes down.” But Madame was hysterically angry at the idea. Her husband was uneasy, she knew, and there was no possible way of letting him know that she and Olivia were safe. Then just look at those waves,
and that was enough! Who knew but in the night they might rise and sweep the entire town away. Even now, the house rocked on its foundations. The servants who had gone out the night before, had not been able to return and the two were alone.
Natalie looked at her earnestly as she talked. Madame had tried all that money and persuasion could do, no one dared brave those waves to meet the boat. Moreover, all the skiffs in Mandeville, save five, had gone to pieces in the storm. Olivia was crying silently, dreading the angry waters.
“For Oleevia, I’ll take you,” said Natalie at length, “For your ‘Mees Oleevia,’” she couldn’t help growing sarcastic under the circumstances. The few people who gazed out of windows and from galleries of the houses remaining on the beach marveled to see Natalie’s brown arms pulling the now heavily laden dory up the street. Mrs. Spiers and the valise were stored in the boat among the wet chickens and the trembling kitten, while Olivia steered. It was easy enough rowing up the street in the comparatively calm water, but the superhuman effort came when it was time to get into the lake towards the boat which had now reached the landing, puffing and blowing, and tugging at the cable which bound her to the broken anchor-post.
It was only a hundred yards out, but it needed a man’s herculean strength to pull against the fearful force of the heavy, incoming waves. A foot would be gained, only to be lost and beaten back for three feet or more. Mrs. Spiers, too frightened to speak looked desperately about her, while Olivia prayed silently as she steered. From the deck of the steamer, the Captain and crew watched the dory with a field glass. “If only we could help her!” they cried, but every boat had been swept from the steamer in that awful twenty mile battle from New Orleans.
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