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He paused by and by, stretched, and went to the window. His wife caught the same spirit of relaxation, stopped her wheel, looked at the boy moping in the chimney-corner, and, passing over to his side, laid a hand upon his temple to see if he might have fever. The lad's eyes did not respond to her; they were following Sosthène.
Judging it unwise to make himself known to the master and mistress of the house, Captain Loreuil played his part vigorously to the last. Close on Juve's heels he came, shouting: "This is a nice kind of shop, this is!... You shall not remain here, Sosthène, my child! Come, then, with your mother! She will find you a very different situation to this! My poor Sosthène!"...
What did make Sosthène notable was the quiet thing we call thrift, made graceful by certain rudiments of taste. To say Sosthène, means Madame Sosthène as well; and this is how it was that Zoséphine Gradnego and Bonaventure Deschamps, though they went not to school, nevertheless had "advantages." For instance, the clean, hard-scrubbed cypress floors beneath their pattering feet; the neat round parti-colored mats at the doors that served them for towns and villages; the strips of home-woven carpet that stood for roads this one to Mermentau, that one to Côte Gelée, a third
"I will do it," said the curé. It required much ingenuity of argument to make the Gradnego pair see the matter in the desired light; but when the curé promised Sosthène that he would teach the lad to read and write, and then promised la vieille that Zoséphine should share this educational privilege with him, they let him go.
Think of Bonaventure, the slender, the intense, the reticent with 'Thanase limping on rude but glorious crutches for four consecutive Saturdays and Sundays up and down in full sight of Zoséphine, savior of her mother from widowhood, owner of two fine captured horses, and rewarded by Sosthène with five acres of virgin prairie.
The prostrate boy does not move. 'Thanase strides up to the bed and looks at one burning cheek, then turns to his aunt. "Li malade?" "Is he ill?" "Sa l'air a ca," said the aunt. "Bien, n'onc' Sosthène, adjieu." Uncle and nephew shake hands stoutly. "Adjieu," says the young soldier again to his aunt. She gives her hand and turns to hide a tear. The youth takes one step toward Zoséphine.
So that the pretty damsel would have to take him aside, and kiss him as they clasped, and promise him, "Next time next time, without fail!" Nevertheless, he always reaped two proud delights from these events. For one, Sosthène always took him upon his lap and introduced him as his little Creole.
And that is no trifle to you or me; for whether for good or bad, in a large way or in a small way, he is going to make himself felt." The ex-governor mused. "I'm glad the little fellow has you for a friend, father. I'll tell you; if Sosthène and his wife will part with him, and you will take him to live with you, and, mark you, not try too hard to make a priest of him, I will bear his expenses."
Up, bleeding old man bang! bang! Ha, ha, ora! that finishes ora! 'Twas the boy saved your life with that last shot, Sosthène, and the boy the youth is 'Thanase. He has not stopped to talk; he and his father are catching the horses of the dead and dying jayhawkers. Now bind up Sosthène's head, and now 'Thanase's hip. Now strip the dead beasts, and take the dead men's weapons, boots, and spurs.
They mount the calèches, Sosthène after Madame Sosthène; 'Thanase after Madame 'Thanase. "To horse, ladies and gentlemen!" Never mind now about the youth who has been taken ill in the chapel, and whom the curé has borne almost bodily in his arms to his own house. "Mount! Mount! Move aside for the wedding singers!"
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