Dominique

Newspaper
Year
1886
Month
3
Day
11
Article Title
Dominique
Author
----
Page Number
4
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
DOMINIQUE. Work had stopped on all the Acadian plantations in St. Mary and Vermilion parishes. Was not to-morrow the first day of La Careme, when all fun and dancing must cease for forty days? Was not today Mardi-gras? The excitement of the great carnival at New Orleans could not reach those remote, solitary parishes, but in all the isolated farmhouses scattered amongst the bayoux, the Acadians made ready to celebrate the fete. There was to be a grand picnic in the live-oak forest, near to Louis Des Vachel’s plantation, and in the evening a dance at the Widow Bernard Baudry’s. Everybody went to early mass, and then gaily dressed groups, on foot, on horseback, or in rickety caleches, began to cross the country to the plantation Des Vaches. It was a sunny day in March. The innumerable bayoux, streams and ponds that covered the flat, green country glittered like silver in the sun, as the wind swept over them from the Gulf, rolling in heavy purple clouds a mist now and then, which blotted out the landscape for a while, and then rose in trailing fragrance in wet brilliancy. A heavy mass of shadow in the distance showed where the forest or live-oak stood. Everybody pressed towards it, chattering and laughing and singing. In the woods young Dominique Baudry was busy helping the Des Vaches family make ready for their guests. True, the fete was to be at his mother's house that evening, but Dominique had enough fun and energy in him to start a dozen balls and out-door fetes. The Des Vaches had no hesitation in asking him to come over and help them to arrange the trays on the grass, which were to be heaped with bread, cheese and little sugar cups for Nisetto cordial and coffee. The Acadians of Louisiana are as simple in their tastes as their French ancestors, and had as keen delight in little pleasures. The scattered groups all gathered at last under the enormous trees, while the long waving moss made a spectral, uncertain shadow overhead. The elder women sat apart and sipped their neighbor's cordials, gave each other receipts, and petted the hables, throwing a gay joke now and then to their husbands,—busy talking of the earning rice crop. The young people strolled away in couples, and brought back masses of roses or purple flags. Everywhere, as they all remembered afterwards, Dominique Baudry was busy, saucy, handsome. joking. It was he who piled a heap or moss for old Mere Flandreau, and set the cross old body to laughing; it was he who started games for the children. He had a kind word and a bit of fun for everybody, even the poor negroes, who had followed their masters. Nobody blamed the Veuve Baudry that she sat silent, watching him with evident pride. "You have a good son, madame," said her old friend Caseau, from the Teche Country. “ I hear he had the banner crop of rice In your parish last year. '' "Yes," said old Jacques Des Vaches;" and Dominique is foremost in play as in work. A good looking dog, too! I think he resembles me as I was forty years ago,” at which they all laughed. Little Jean trotted about after Dominique wherever he went. Jean was the son of Louis Baudry, who was dead, and Dominique loved the child who had slept in his arms since he was a baby, as dearly as he did Gertrude, perhaps. But the young fellow had a big heart, with plenty room it for all who were dear to him. The girl’s kind words made him frantic with happiness to-day, but he did not forget little Jean for a moment. Indeed, he took him aside and whispered to him, “Do you see that beautiful lady? You must put her in your prayers now, mon bebe, for perhaps she will some day live with us, and be as kind to you as your dear mother was who is dead. But hush-h!” Jean nodded his wise little head, and kept the secret. It was just at this time that the strange occurrence happened which kept all the parishes from Bayon Teche to La Fourche in wonder for a long time. Dominique with some of the other young fellows, had waded into the swamp in the morning to bring out certain pink flowers which the girls admired. Gertrude Caseau now asked him for some to dress her hair for the fete, and Dominique, his cheeks burning, and eyes shining with pleasure, ran up to where the thicket was dense, that he might be hidden while he rolled up his trousers, and plunged into the water. He was gone so long that the young men shouted for him again and again. At last he came out of the thicket and halted, looking at them. Young Jacques Des Vaches, who ran to meet him, told afterward that his features were sunken and nipped, and wore a ghastly palor as if he had been suddenly struck with death. He (Des Vaches) alleged that he was so alarmed that he drew back, which Dominique gave a hoarse, bitter laugh. Then he demanded what was wrong, thinking perhaps he had been bitten by a moccasin snake, the bite or which is fatal. Dominique made no answer but threw the pink flowers on the ground, motioning towards M. Caseau's daughter. Des Vaches then called the child, Jean, to come and see what ailed Dominique. knowing how dear the boy was to him. But Baudry at that cried: “No, no! Keep him back!” and then turned and plunged into the swamp. Des Vaches was so bewildered that he did not follow him, but gathering the bunches of roses, gave them to Gertrude saying that M. Baudry would soon return. When Dominique was missed it was supposed by all, even by his mother, that he had returned home to make ready for his guests. But when Widow Baudry went to her house early in the evening (a few of the neighbors going with her to give their help in the simple preparation for the fete,) it was dark and closed. The table was arranged as she had left it, but no lamp was lighted nor fire kindled. His mother, crying out that her boy must be ill, ran up to his room. It was open end vacant. Dominique was very orderly. His clothes, papers, etc., were always arranged as by a neat woman. But now drawers, and armoire stood open, some of the garments were trailed on the floor, everything showed the preparation for sudden flight. Now, the lad had never been twenty miles from home in his life. His mother cried out helplessly and sank on the ground. The other neighbors came trooping in, and then Jacques Des Vaches told his story, and all was wonder and wild conjecture. The Baudrys had no kinsfolk who could have sent him a sudden summons. Dominique was a hardworking devout lad, with no enemy, nor secret tendency in crime. Where had he gone? What had be seen in the swamp? Some or his friends thought that he had been bitten by a serpent, whose poison had maddened him, and others that he had met a Voudou witch who had cast an evil eye on him. When it was found, however, that he had taken his mother’s picture out of his desk, these stories were not believed. Seareh was made all that night. The day which begun in joy set in a blank horror. All through the solemn season of Careme the search went on. The swamps were hunted with bloodhounds, the sluggish bright bayoux were dragged, but all in vain. Dominique Baudry had vanished. He had been carried off, it was now believe, by an evil spirit. The key to the mystery was simple. Coming out of the swamp, he arms full of roses, whistling and singing with triumph, Dominique stooped to pull on his long worsted stocking. Below his knee he saw a white shining spot on the skin. It had not been there this morning. He stooped-staring at it, trembling. It was not a sore, it was not a scar; it was-or he believed it to be-leprosy! Had he not seen the accursed lepers in Vermilion parish before they were removed to the House of Lepers in New Orleans? Who went there never returned. One thinks swiftly in such throes of life as this. Dominique Baudry understood all that awaited him, before Jacques came to him in the swamp. That was the end-the last! Jean should not come to him. He could never kiss the poor baby again-nor his mother. He hid in the swamp like a wild beast that afternoon, watching them all,-his mother would have no body to turn when he was gone, little Jean and-Gertrude. Why, he loved her since he was a child! And now, when his head snatched back to be what-what? A living corpse. Then the temptation came. It was the Devil, as honest Dominique knew. Why need he go! It would be weeks, months, perhaps, before the disease would develop. He could conceal it. He could enjoy his home. He could marry. To spread death about him? “Why not?” he shouted madly. “Why shall I not have my wife, my love, my home? I, too, am a man!” There in the swamp alone, the poor Acadian fought his fight with selfishness and greed and passion. We all of us have that fight some day. Dominique conquered. But he was so afraid of his own weakness that he ran to the house, gathered up a few clothes and his mother’s picture, and before night fell was pushing his bateau far down the bayou. It was a journey of several weeks, by this way, to New Orleans. Through fiats, the thick jungles of palmetto, of rank flowers, where every kind of poisonous serpent hid, through the interminable cypress forests, hung with moss, through the rich sugar plantations and the rice flats, the sluggish bayou crept. Heavy malarious mists hung over it at night, and when the sun warmed it, the alligators thrust their jaws out of the water and watched him with dead hungry eyes. If the malaria would give him the plague! If the alligators would drag him down! If death in any shape would come to his help! He thought he could bear what was coming better if he could have left a single word for his mother, to explain what had happened. But if she knew she would follow him to the House of Lepers. His leg burned and swelled. He was not able at last to row, but lay in the bottom of the boat and drifted down the stream, creeping on shore at night for food. He would take it from the negro cabins, leaving a coin in payment. Every day the fever in his veins rose higher and grew weaker, until, when the little boat drifted out of the bay into the gulf, Dominique lay on the bottom like one dead. The crew of a logger bound to New Orleans saw the boat, took him aboard and nursed him carefully. On the day they made port, Dominique regained his senses. The captain found him lying with his eyes open looking out upon the water. He, too, was a “Cajan.” “Good day, friend,” he said in their own tongue. “Thou hast had a tough fight.” Dominique looked at him, reason and memory struggling back into his dull eyes. “Where wast thou going in thy little boat?” “To the House of Lepers.” The man and one of the crew, who had come into the cabin, started back from him in horror. Dominique pointed to his leg. “Grace a dieu!” shouted the captain, wild with excitement. “It is not leprosy. It is not leprosy. It is poison from dead shell fish. You were in a swamp” “Yes-Yes!” gasped Dominique, struggling out of his bunk and thrusting out his leg. The swelling, the dead white spot were gone! Dominique gave a hoarse yell of triumph, and then fell upon his knees, crying and praying at once. The rice was ready to harvest before he could earn enough money to go home. But when he did, there was rejoicing in Vermillion and St. Mary’s parishes enough for many Mardis Gras. Dominique is married now, and one of the leading men among the planters. But there is a strange flavor of mystery and heroic adventure about him, and his stories of his long voyage are as dear to his proud neighbors as the tales of the Troubadours were to their ancestors long ago