In less than a week from the day of flight to the ships quiet was restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once; on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was commended by his home government. The governor was censured and superseded. The planters got no pay for their slaves.

The government may have argued that the ex-master should no more be paid for his slave than the ex-slave recover back pay for his labor; and that, after all, a general emanc.i.p.ation was only a moderate raising of wages unjustly low and uniform. Both kings and congresses will at times do the easy thing instead of the fair one and let two wrongs offset each other. Make haste, rising generations! and, as you truly honor your fathers, bring to their graves the garlandry of juster laws and kinder, purer days.

To different minds this true story will speak, no doubt, a varying counsel. Some will believe that the lovely island was saved from the agonies of a Haytian revolution only through iron suppression. To others it will appear that the old governor's rashly timorous edict was, after all, the true source of deliverance. Certainly the question remains, whether even the most sudden and ill-timed concession of rights, if only backed by energetic police action, is not a prompter, surer cure for public disorder than whole batteries of artillery without the concession of rights. I believe the most blundering effort for the prompt undoing of a grievous wrong is safer than the shrewdest or strongest effort for its continuance. Meanwhile, with what patience doth G.o.d wait for man to learn his lessons! The Holy Cross still glitters on the bosom of its crystal sea, as it shone before the Carib danced on its snowy sands, and as it will still shine when some new Columbus, as yet unborn, brings to it the Christianity of a purer day than ours.

Chester shook the pages together on his knee.

"Oh-h-h!" cried Mlle. Corinne to Yvonne, to Aline, to Mlle. Castanado, "the en'! and--where is all that abbout that beautiful cat what was the proprity of Dora? Everything abbout that cat of Dora--_scratch out_! Ah, Mr. Chezter! Yvonne and me, we find that the moze am-using part--that episode of the cat--that large, wonderful, mazculine cat of Dora! Ah, madame" [to the chair], "hardly Marie Madeleine is more wonderful than that--when Jack pritend to lift his li'l' miztress through the surf of the sea, how he _flew_ at the throat of Jack, that aztonishing mazculine cat! Ah, M'sieu' Beloiseau!--and to scradge that!"

But Beloiseau was judicially calm. "Yes, I rim-ember that portion.

Scientific-ally I foun' that very interezting; but, like Mr. Chezter, I thing tha'z better _art_ that the tom-cat be elimin-ate."

"Well," said the chair, "w'at we want to settle--shall we accep' that riv-ision of Mr. Chezter, to combine it in the book--'Clock in the Sky,' 'Angel of the Lord,' 'Holy Crozz'--seem' to me that combination goin' to sell like hot cake'."

"Yes! Agcept!" came promptly from two or three.

"Any oppose'? There is not any oppose'--Seraphine--Marcel--you'll be so good to pazz those rif-reshment?"

x.x.xIV

"Tis gone--to the pewblisher?"

M. De l'Isle, about to enter his double gate, had paused. In his home, overhead, a clock was striking five of the tenth day after that second reading in the Castanados' parlor. The energetic inquiry was his.

A single step away, in the door of the iron-worker's shop, Beloiseau, too quick for Chester, at whose elbow he stood, replied: "Tis gone better! Tis gone to the editor--of the greatez' magazine of the worl'!"

"Bravo! Sinze how long?"

"A week," Chester said.

"Hah! and his _rip_-ly?"

"Hasn't come yet."

"Ah, look out, now! Look out he don' steal that! You di'n' write him: 'Wire answer'? You muz' do that! I'll pay it myseff!"

"I thought I'd wait one more day. He may have other ma.n.u.scripts to consider."

"Mr. Chezter, that ma.n.u.scrip' is not in a prize contess; 'tis only with itseff! You di'n' say that?"

"I--implied it--as gracefully as I could."

"Ah! graze'--the h-only way to write those fellow, tha'z with the big stick! 'Wire h-answer!'"

Beloiseau lifted a finger: "I don' think thad way. Firz' place, big stick or no, that hiztorie is sure to be accept'."

M. De l'Isle let out a roar that seemed to tear the lining from his throat: "Aw-w-w! tha'z not to compel the agceptanze; tha'z to scare them from stealing it! And to privend that, there's another thing you want to infer them: that you billong to the Louisiana Branch of the Authors' Protegtive H-union! Ah, doubtlezz you don't--billong; but all the same you can infer them!"

Beloiseau's response crowded Chester's out: "Well, they are maybe important, those stratagem'; but to me the chieve danger is if maybe _that_ editor shou'n' have the sagacitie--artiztic--commercial--to perceive the brilliancy of thad story."

"Never mine! in any'ow two days we'll know. Scipion! The day avter those two, tha'z a pewblic holiday--everything shut!"

"Yes, well?"

"If that news come, 'accepted,' all of us we'll be so please' that we'll be compel to egsprezz that in a joy-ride! and even if 'rifused,'

we'll need that joy-ride to swallow the indignation."

"Ah! but with whose mash-in', so it won't put uz in bankrup'cy?"

"With two mash-in'--the two of Thornd.y.k.e-Smith! He's offer' to borrow me those whiles he's going to be accrozz the lake. You'll drive the large, me the small."

"Hah! Tha'z a gran' scheme. At the en', dinner at Antoine', all the men chipping in! Castanado--Dubroca--me--Mr. Chezter, eh?"

"With the greatest pleasure if I'm included."

"Include'--hoh! By the laws of nature!" M. De l'Isle went on up-stairs.

"We had a dinner like that," Beloiseau said, "only withoud the joy-ride and withoud those three Mlles. Chapdelaine, juz' a few week' biffo' we make' yo' acquaintanze. That was to celebrade that great victory in France and same time the news of savety of our four boys ad the front."

Chester stood astounded. "What four boys?"

"You di'n' know abboud those? Ah, well, tha'z maybe biccause we don'

speak of them biffo' those ladies Chapdelaine. An' still tha'z droll you di'n' know that, but tha'z maybe biccause each one he's think another he's tol' you, and biccause tha'z not a prettie cheerful subjec', eh? Yes, they are two son' of Dubroca and Castanado, soldier', and two of De l'Isle and me, aviateur'."

"And up to a few weeks ago they were all well?"

"Ah, not well--one wounded, one h'arm broke, one trench-fivver, but all safe, laz' account."

"Tell me more about them, Beloiseau. You know I don't easily ask personal questions. Tell me all I'm welcome to know, will you?"

"I want to do that--to tell you all; but"--M. Ducatel, next neighbor above, was approaching--"better another time--ah, Rene, tha'z a pretty warm evening, eh?"

x.x.xV

For two days more the vast machinery of the United States mail swung back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up"

the ma.n.u.script once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's.

The holiday--"everything shut up"--had arrived. No carrier was abroad.

Neither reason given for the joy-ride held good. Yet the project was well on foot. The smaller car was at the De l'Isles' lovely gates, with monsieur in the chauffeur's seat, Mme. Alexandre at his side, and Dubroca close behind her. The larger machine stood at the opposite curb, with Beloiseau for driver, and Mme. Dubroca--a very small, trim, well-coiffed woman with a dainty lorgnette--in the first seat behind him. Castanado waited in the street door at the foot of his stair, down which Mme. Castanado was coming the only way she could come.

Her crossing of the sidewalk and her elevation first to the running-board and then to a seat beside Mme. Dubroca took time and the strength of both men, yet was achieved with a dignity hardly appreciated by the street children, who covered their mouths, averted their faces, and cheered as the two cars, the smaller leading, moved off and turned from Royal Street into Conti on their way to pick up the three Chapdelaines.

For nearly two hundred years--ever since the city had had a post-office--the post-office had been not too superior to remain in the _vieux carre_. Now, like so many old Creole homes themselves, it was "away up" in the American quarter--or "nine-tenth'"--at Lafayette Square. On holidays any one anxious enough for his mail to go "away up yondah" between nine and ten A.M., could have it for the asking. And such a one was Chester.