Bayou Suzette

by Lois Lenski

  Still it rained, pouring heavily all day Saturday.

  Grandmère and Maman and the children sat sadly indoors. All the wooden shutters were tightly closed, and a lamp burned with a flickering yellow light above the kitchen table.

  Once Joseph and little Noonoo begged to go out to pick white clover to make nests for the Easter rabbit. “Me, I go too,” said Suzette.

  “You want to go out and drown, yes?” asked Maman.

  They opened the window and looked out. The canal round the garden patch had overflowed into the paths between the rows. The bean rows were already covered.

  Then they heard Papa Jules coming. His rubber boots splashed through the flooded yard.

  “Next time I come home,” he announced, laughing, “I row the skiff right over the levee and tie it up by the kitchen door!” He never guessed how true he spoke.

  Everybody laughed. It was good to see him again.

  “If the water get higher,” he explained, soberly, “Guidry, he lose all his sugar cane. Me, I gotta go right back. We do w’at we can to save it. We work all night, mebbe.”

  He ate his supper hastily.

  “The rain, won’t it never stop?” cried Maman, in despair. “Beans planted on Good Friday make the best crop, but … ours, they all wash’ away.”

  “Beans, they easy to plant again,” said Grandmère.

  “If it not stop soon,” said Papa Jules, trying to joke, “me, I go to the Indian mound and build us a palmetto hut on the very top! Then we keep dry all right!”

  Once again, he knew not how true he spoke.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  High Water

  “The crevasse is come! The crevasse is come! Ev’body gotta run away!”

  It was Easter morning. Suzette rubbed her eyes and jumped quickly out of bed. She could not believe the words she heard. She knew all too well that a break in the Mississippi River levee was called a crevasse.

  “Oh, my three purty orange trees! Just when they all nice in blossom, they gonna get drown’.” That was Tante Céleste.

  “Moumout, he gone to get palmetto leaves.… He gonna start buildin’on the Indian mound.…” That was Tante Toinette, breathless.

  “Lodod, he say we go up to New Orleans, we not stay here.” Tante Thérèse spoke up.

  “Maman … Maman …” Joseph and Noonoo began to cry.

  Suzette dressed quickly and hurried out to the kitchen. The aunts were there all talking at once. The room was nearly dark with windows and doors closed. A coal-oil lamp burned dimly on the wall. Suzette pushed one window shutter partly open and looked out. She shut it again quickly, as if anxious to blot out what she had seen. She looked around, saw that Eulalie and the boys were all up and dressed, but the Indian girl was not there.

  “Where Marteel?” she asked.

  Nobody answered her question. She stared at her aunts in the dim half-light. Their hair was uncombed and they were only half dressed, with shawls thrown over their shoulders.

  “’Tit Pierre and Gros Paul, they bring word,” Tante Thérèse went on, “’bout the crevasse and tell ev’body to run away quick!”

  “W’at we gonna do?” wailed Maman. “Jules, he en’t slep’ home for two night …”

  Little Noonoo and Joseph began crying more loudly.

  “On Easter, too!” cried Tante Céleste. “Me, I put my new outfit on that Lodod got for me …” Her flowered lawn dress looked sadly out of place. Already the bottom ruffles were soaked with muddy water.

  “Go take it off again!” said Grandmère, sharply. “Nobody gonna wear a new outfit today.” Grandmère was burning palm leaves before the Virgin’s statue on the shelf.

  “The Mississippi can’t never hold all that water,” Tante Thérèse continued. “The levee got to break somewhere.”

  “The giant river, he got many mouths, but he all the time try to find a new one,” said Tante Toinette.

  “And we all get drownded like muskrats!” moaned Tante Céleste.

  “Nonsense!” said Grandmère. “There been crevasses before, and there be crevasses again. Anybody who lives in the bayou country knows that. Only make up your mind w’at you gonna do, that’s all.”

  “My three orange trees …” began Tante Céleste again.

  “Go, get a spade and a box,” ordered Grandmère. “Dig ’em up, plant ’em in the box and put the box up on the roof of your shed. Then mebbe you can save ’em.”

  “But me, I can’t lift ’em up …” Tante Céleste began.

  “Go, do w’at I say,” said Grandmère. “Then move all the furniture you can up to the attic. You be surprised w’at you can lift at a time like this.”

  Tante Céleste opened the door, lifted her ruffled skirts high and splashed out.

  “Don’t waste so much time talkin’,” said Grandmère to the other aunts. “Go home, move your furniture up—the t’ings you want most to save.”

  “Where’s Marteel?” asked Suzette again.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Maman. “I en’t seen her.”

  “Did she come in from the shed?” asked Suzette.

  “Me, I don’t know,” said Grandmère. She turned to the aunts. “Go home, do w’at I say and do it quick!” she ordered.

  They pulled their shawls up over their heads and splashed out.

  Suzette remembered that she had not seen Marteel for a long time. She threw on a shawl and went out. It was still raining heavily. When the door was opened, a flood of water came pouring in over the kitchen floor. The yard was now covered to that level. The doorsteps were entirely covered. Only the top half of the picket fence could be seen.

  Suzette waded through the water to reach the shed, but Marteel was not there. Her bed, which had not been slept in recently, was floating. Suzette remembered now that Marteel had helped Ambrose spade the garden on Thursday, but she had not seen her since. On the way back to the house, she rescued some struggling chickens from the water and set them on the roof of the chicken house. Just as she returned to the back door, Papa Jules appeared in his skiff. He rowed it over the low levee, in through the front gate and tied it up by the kitchen door, just as he said he would. But he was not joking now.

  “Oh, Jules, Jules!” cried Maman, falling into his arms. “It true, yes? It a flood, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Papa Jules, “but not’ing to get excited about. A crevasse in the Mississippi. High water it coming, but coming slow. The break, it seven mile from here—so we got plenty time. Too bad Guidry had to lose all that sugar cane. We built a levee round the field and kept pilin’ dirt higher and higher, but we can’t keep the water out. So he say let it go and sent us home to look after our families. Me, I come soon as I could.”

  “W’at we do? W’at we do?” wailed Maman.

  “Take the furniture up to the grenier,” said Grandmère, sternly.

  “Yes, that the first t’ing,” said Papa Jules.

  “Where Marteel?” asked Suzette. “She can help.”

  But no one knew or had time to think of the Indian girl’s absence. The boys helped carry things out on the front gallery and lift them up the steep ladder-like stair. Suzette and Eulalie helped Maman take the dishes off the shelves and pile them, with the groceries, in baskets.

  When she could find nothing to do, Suzette opened the front bedroom window and looked out. Water covered all the floors now, so she crouched on a chair. The anxiety about Marteel faded, as other worries crowded close.

  Her flower seeds in the parterre by the front gallery were all washed away. She need not look to see. The little stunted fig tree in the corner by the fence was standing deep in water. She remembered how each winter it got frozen back and had to start growing all over again. Now it had big green leaves—would it ever bear fruit? She looked down at the rose-bush, just beneath the window. It was still blooming bravely with most of its branches under water. Each year, all summer long, there were roses to pick. Grandmère gave the bush to her to take care of …

  She jumped up suddenly and ru
shed toward the back kitchen door.

  “Where you goin’, Susu?” asked Grandmère.

  “Me, I gonna dig up the rose-bush, and lift it on top the shed, like you tell Tante Céleste ’bout her orange trees.”

  Grandmère shook her head. “Water too deep, ma petite,” she said, gently. “Too late now. Better let the rose-bush go.”

  Suzette went back to her chair by the open window. The tears rolled down her cheek one by one.

  Papa Jules took a heavy load up to the attic and then came down again. He stopped in the bedroom.

  “W’at you cryin’ for, Susu?” he asked, harshly.

  “My four-o’clocks … me, I bought seed by Père Eugène and now they all … wash’away!” she wailed.

  “Flowers, bah!” scolded Papa, angrily. “Seeds—they easy to plant again. W’y you not cry for the sugar cane that bring money for food for you to eat and clothes for you to wear?” Papa Jules went out the back door, got in his skiff and rowed away.

  “Don’t cry, ma petite,” said Grandmère. “You feel bad ’bout the rose-bush, but cryin’ won’t help any. It only make Papa Jules cross to see you cry.”

  Suzette could not leave her place by the window. The water kept on rising inch by inch. The whole yard looked like one enormous lake now, stretching across the bayou and off in all directions. The wharves had disappeared from sight, and crab-cars, boxes, pirogues, barrels, branches and trash floated in all directions.

  “W’at a mercy the water it come up slowly,” said Grandmère. “It give time to make our plans.”

  Papa Jules came back with Nonc Moumout in his lugger. The two men poled it round the house, then, with the help of the boys, loaded cow, pigs and chickens on board. Papa Jules came into the house for a moment. The first thing he saw was Suzette crying at the bedroom window.

  “W’at you cryin’ for, Susu?” he asked again.

  Suzette stammered. “For … my rose-bush!” She hid her face in her hands.

  “For your rose-bush? W’y you not cry for the lost sugar cane? For the money your Papa not earn?”

  Papa Jules stamped out of the room angrily. In the kitchen he spoke to Maman. “Me, I take the animals to the Indian mound. I stay and build us a palmetto hut to camp in. Can’t tell how soon I come back.”

  “Oh Jules, you go off and leave us?” cried Maman. “With the water still rising?”

  “There en’t no other way,” said Papa Jules. “Gotta fix a dry place for us to stay. The high water, it don’t go down for months when it come from a crevasse in the levee. Don’t stay below here too long and get sick. Go upstairs, wait in the attic. Where Marteel? Seen her?”

  “Gone again,” said Maman. “Always gone when we need her most.”

  “She not drownded, no?” asked Suzette, anxiously.

  Papa Jules shook his head. “Me, I come back for you soon as I can. Be ready to go.”

  Suzette watched the lugger, with the stock aboard, pull out of the yard and sweep slowly round the house. Then Maman said it was time to go upstairs. They all climbed up and changed to dry clothes.

  The attic bedroom, with its low, sloping roof, was dark and overcrowded now with all the furniture. A window with a shutter opened out at the south gable end. Suzette took her place beside it and looked down over the yard. She could still see the fig tree’s green leaves and the rose-bush’s pink blooms.

  Maman and Eulalie and Grandmère bustled around, sorting and arranging furniture, clothing and supplies, to have everything in readiness when Papa Jules came to take them away. But he did not come till the next day. The first thing he saw was Suzette still crying.

  “W’at you cryin’ for now?” he demanded.

  “For … for the sugar cane!” she stammered. But in her heart, she knew it was not true.

  The men brought the lugger up close to the front gallery and loaded on bedding and supplies. Maman and Eulalie and the boys climbed down the ladder and went aboard.

  “Who next?” called Papa Jules, loudly.

  “Nobody,” called Grandmère.

  “You not comin’?” asked Papa Jules, surprised. “And where Susu? She not here.”

  “We stay here,” called Grandmère. “Suzette, she stayin’ by me to keep me company.”

  “W’at this?” growled Papa Jules. He came up to the attic and scolded angrily.

  “Me, I come here fifty year ago when Grandpère bring me a bride,” said Grandmère with a smile. “I been here ever since and I en’t never gonna leave. If the house go in the high water, me, I go with it. It my house and I love it.”

  Suzette put her arms tight round Grandmère’s waist.

  “You won’t come then?” asked Papa Jules.

  “Me, I stay here,” said Grandmère.

  “Me, I stay by Grandmère,” said Suzette.

  Moumout was shouting below for Jules to come. He could not argue longer. He turned to Suzette. “You stop cryin’ if you stay by Grandmère?”

  “Yes,” said Suzette.

  Papa Jules kissed them both and went down the ladder.

  The next day Suzette sat by the window again and watched the high water swallow up first each pink rose on the rose-bush, then each green leaf of the fig tree. After the rose-bush was gone, she had no interest in anything. She saw boats pass the house loaded with people, animals and furniture. She saw roofs of houses carried by on the swollen bayou, she saw dead snakes, birds and alligators float past. But for all these things she had not a single tear. Somehow she did not care.

  The days passed one by one. The rain stopped but the water kept on rising.

  Suzette felt sick. Her head ached and her body was hot from head to foot. Grandmère prepared food as well as she could without fire, but Suzette would not eat. She lay all day on a moss mattress without speaking.

  Nonc Serdot and Nonc Moumout came to try to take Grandmère away, but succeeded no better than Jules. Grandmère refused to leave.

  Then the ladder itself was submerged and the lake outside the window was almost up to the sill. Days passed and the two, marooned in the attic, were left alone. No one came to see them. Although Suzette ate almost nothing, the food supply dwindled and Grandmère grew silent and thoughtful.

  At last the water reached its peak and began to drop gradually. One day they noticed it had sunk a full foot beneath the sill. When a large, heavy plank came floating past the window, Grandmère reached out with a broom and drew it up against the house.

  “W’at dat for?” asked Suzette.

  “I go get somet’ing, me,” said Grandmère.

  Without another word, Grandmère stepped out onto the plank and, using her broom for a paddle, began to pole the plank upstream. So many strange things had happened—this was only one more.

  “Where you goin’, Grandmère?” asked Suzette, as she watched the swaying plank rise and fall on the water.

  Grandmère did not say, but promised to be back soon.

  Grandmère came back, not poling the plank, but seated in a pirogue, with Marteel at the paddle.

  “Me, I bring you a doctor,” said Grandmère.

  Suzette smiled. It was good to see Marteel again.

  “Me, I go to the palmetto huts at the Indian mound,” Grandmère went on, “but nobody got medicine. It all been left in the houses and wash’ away in the flood. Me, I feel ver’ sad, I don’t know w’at to do … no doctor, no medicine. Then Marteel, she come in one of them Indian’s pirogues. I tell her how sick you be, so she pick Spanish moss and boil up some tea for you over Maman’s fire.”

  Marteel let Suzette look in the basket she brought. It contained a little pile of black cured moss, a few roots and herbs, bits of deerskin, and a large bottle filled with a dark brown liquid.

  “Me, I be a ‘treater’ like the old squaw,” said Marteel.

  She poured some of the liquid into a cup and handed it to Suzette. She leaned over Suzette’s bed and swayed her body back and forth, while she mumbled Indian chants and memory prayers. Suzette thought of the ghos
t chant in the graveyard long ago and Grandmère’s black anger. But now, Grandmère looked on approvingly, so she lifted the cup and drank.

  The next day Marteel came again and brought a brew made from the bark of the hackberry tree for Suzette’s sore throat, and after that, she came each day for a visit. Grandmère, hopeful now, gave Suzette frequent doses of the strange-tasting medicines. Soon Suzette began to grow better and was ready to eat again. And Marteel earned Grandmère’s lasting gratitude.

  One day Marteel worked busily as she sat by Suzette’s bed. Toward evening, she handed Suzette a strange-looking doll, whose body, arms, legs and two pig-tails were made of braided Spanish moss. It had tiny shining sea-shell eyes, deerskin shoes and apron, and a string of beads about its neck. Suzette laughed, it was so funny.

  “An Injun doll? A leetle Sabine?” she asked.

  Marteel nodded and a broad grin spread over her face. She took from her basket some flat, shiny, pointed discs and fastened them to the doll’s dress. “Wampum!” she explained. “Dyed scales from the gar-fish, they make good wampum, yes?”

  Suzette nodded. “You ketch gar-fish?”

  “No,” said Marteel. “Sabine Joe ketch ’em. I get the scales by him.”

  “Sabine Joe? Who dat?”

  “Just a ole no-count Injun,” said Marteel, shrugging her shoulders. “His mother, she the ole squaw.” Marteel frowned.

  “She hurt you again?” asked Suzette.

  “No!” Marteel showed her white teeth in a quick laugh. “She too old, can’t catch me no more. Me, I run away quick.”

  “Where you stay when the levee break and high water come?”

  “On the big high Injun mound called ‘the Temple’—where Bayou Perot meet Bayou Rigolettes,” said Marteel. “All the Injuns come, they eat and sleep there. Plenty animal come too—deer, muskrat, coon, opossum, rabbit, skunk, all kind.”