The Goodness of St. Rocque, and Other Stories

								


Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.

THE GOODNESS OF ST. ROCQUE AND OTHER STORIES

By
ALICE DUNBAR

  To
My best Comrade
My Husband

CONTENTS

  THE GOODNESS OF SAINT ROCQUE
TONY'S WIFE
THE FISHERMAN OF PASS CHRISTIAN
M'SIEU FORTIER'S VIOLIN
BY THE BAYOU ST. JOHN
WHEN THE BAYOU OVERFLOWS
MR. BAPTISTE
A CARNIVAL JANGLE
LITTLE MISS SOPHIE
SISTER JOSEPHA
THE PRALINE WOMAN
ODALIE
LA JUANITA
TITEE

THE GOODNESS OF SAINT ROCQUE
Manuela was tall and slender and graceful, and once you knew her the
lithe form could never be mistaken.  She walked with the easy spring
that comes from a perfectly arched foot.  To-day she swept swiftly down
Marais Street, casting a quick glance here and there from under her
heavy veil as if she feared she was being followed.  If you had peered
under the veil, you would have seen that Manuela's dark eyes were
swollen and discoloured about the lids, as though they had known a
sleepless, tearful night.  There had been a picnic the day before, and
as merry a crowd of giddy, chattering Creole girls and boys as ever you
could see boarded the ramshackle dummy-train that puffed its way
wheezily out wide Elysian Fields Street, around the lily-covered
bayous, to Milneburg-on-the-Lake.  Now, a picnic at Milneburg is a
thing to be remembered for ever.  One charters a rickety-looking,
weather-beaten dancing-pavilion, built over the water, and after
storing the children--for your true Creole never leaves the small folks
at home--and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young folks go
up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you ever heard.  For
what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar, a cornet, and a bass
viol to trip the quadrille to at a picnic?
Then one can fish in the lake and go bathing under the prim
bath-houses, so severely separated sexually, and go rowing on the lake
in a trim boat, followed by the shrill warnings of anxious mamans.  And
in the evening one comes home, hat crowned with cool gray Spanish moss,
hands burdened with fantastic latanier baskets woven by the brown bayou
boys, hand in hand with your dearest one, tired but happy.
At this particular picnic, however, there had been bitterness of
spirit.  Theophile was Manuela's own especial property, and Theophile
had proven false.  He had not danced a single waltz or quadrille with
Manuela, but had deserted her for Claralie, blonde and petite. It was
Claralie whom Theophile had rowed out on the lake; it was Claralie whom
Theophile had gallantly led to dinner; it was Claralie's hat that he
wreathed with Spanish moss, and Claralie whom he escorted home after
the jolly singing ride in town on the little dummy-train.
Not that Manuela lacked partners or admirers.  Dear no! she was too
graceful and beautiful for that.  There had been more than enough for
her.  But Manuela loved Theophile, you see, and no one could take his