ruffian to your table?
Mrs. P. Hospitality in Europe is a courtesy; here, it is an obligation. We tender food to a stranger, not because he is a gentleman, but because he is hungry.
George. Aunt, I will take my rifle down to the Atchafalaya. Paul has promised me a bear and a deer or two. I see my little Nimrod yonder, with his Indian companion. Excuse me ladies. Ho! Paul! [Enters house.]
Paul. [Outside.] I'ss, Mas'r George.
Sunny. It's a shame to allow that young cub to run over the Swamps and woods, hunting and fishing his life away instead of hoeing cane.
Mrs. P. The child was a favorite of the judge, who encouraged his gambols. I couldn't bear to see him put to work.
George. [Returning with rifle.] Come, Paul, are you ready?
Paul. I'ss, Mas'r George. O, golly! ain't that a pooty gun.
M'Closky. See here, you imps; if I catch you, and your red skin yonder, gunning in my swamps, I'll give you rats, mind; them vagabonds, when the game's about, shoot my pigs.
Paul. You gib me rattan, Mas'r Clostry, but I guess you take a berry long stick to Wahnotee; ugh, he make bacon of you.
M'Closky. Make bacon of me, you young whelp. Do you mean that I'm a pig? Hold on a bit. [Seizes whip, and holds Paul.]
Zoe. O, sir! don't, pray, don't.
M'Closky. [Slowly lowering his whip,] Darn you, red skin, I'll pay you off some day, both of ye. [Returns to table and drinks.]
Sunny. That Indian is a nuisance. Why don't he return to his nation out West?
M'Closky. He's too fond of thieving and whiskey.
Zoe. No; Wahnotee is a gentle, honest creature, and remains here because he loves that boy with the tenderness of a woman. When Paul was taken down with the swamp fever the Indian sat outside the hut, and neither ate, slept, or spoke for five days, till the child could recognize and call him to his bedside. He who can love so well is honest – don't speak ill of poor Wahnotee.
Mrs. P. Wahnotee, will you go back to your people?
Wahnotee. Sleugh.
Paul. He don't understand; he speaks a mash-up of Indian and Mexican. Wahnotee Patira na sepau assa wigiran.
Wahnotee. Weal Omenee.
Paul. Says he'll go if I'll go with him. He calls me Omenee, the Pigeon, and Miss Zoe is Ninemoosha, the Sweetheart.
Wahnotee. [Pointing to Zoe.] Ninemoosha.
Zoe. No, Wahnotee, we can't spare Paul.
Paul. If Omenee remain, Wahnotee will die in Terrebonne. [During the dialogue Wahnotee has taken George's gun.]
George. Now I'm ready. [George tries to regain his gun; Wahnoteerefuses to give it up; Paul, quietly takes it from him and remonstrates with him.]
Dora. Zoe, he's going; I want him to stay and make love to me that's what I came for to-day.
Mrs. P. George, I can't spare Paul for an hour or two; he must run over to the landing; the steamer from New Orleans passed up the river last night, and if there's a mail they have thrown it ashore.
Sunny. I saw the mail-bags lying in the shed this morning.
Mrs. P. I expect an important letter from Liverpool; away with you, Paul; bring the mail-bags here.
Paul. I'm 'most afraid to take Wahnotee to the shed, there's rum there.
Wahnotee. Rum!
Paul. Come, then, but if I catch you drinkin', O, laws a mussey, you'll get snakes! I'll gib it you! now mind.
George. Come, Miss Dora, let me offer you my arm.
Dora. Mr. George, I am afraid, if all we hear is true, you have led a dreadful life in Europe.
George. That's a challenge to begin a description of my feminine adventures.
Dora. You have been in love, then?
George. Two hundred and forty-nine times! Let me relate you the worst cases.
Dora. No! no!
George. I'll put the naughty parts in French.
Dora. I won't hear a word! O, you horrible man! go on.
M'Closky. Now, ma'am, I'd like a little business, if agreeable. I bring you news; your banker, old Lafouche, of New Orleans, is dead; the executors are winding up his affairs, and have foreclosed on all overdue mortgages, so Terrebonne is for sale. Here's the Picayune [producing paper] with the advertisement.
Zoe. Terrebonne for sale!
Mrs. P. Terrebonne for sale, and you, sir, will doubtless become its purchaser.
M'Closky. Well, ma'am, I spose there's no law agin my bidding for it. The more bidders, the better for you. You'll take care, I guess, it don't go too cheap.
Mrs. P. O, sir, I don't value the place for its price, but for the many happy days I've spent here; that landscape, flat and uninteresting though it may be, is full of charm for me; those poor people, born around me, growing up about my heart, have bounded my view of life; and now to lose that homely scene, lose their black, ungainly faces; O, sir, perhaps you should be as old as I am, to feel as I do, when my past life is torn away from me.
M'Closky. I'd be darned glad if somebody would tear my past life away from me. Sorry I can't help you, but the fact is, you're in such an all-fired mess that you couldn't be pulled out without a derrick.
Mrs. P. Yes, there is a hope left yet, and I cling to it. The house of Mason Brothers, of Liverpool, failed some twenty years ago in my husband's debt.
M'Closky. They owed him over fifty thousand dollars.
Mrs. P. I cannot find the entry in my husband's accounts; but you, Mr. M'Closky, can doubtless detect it. Zoe, bring here the judge's old desk; it is in the library.
M'Closky. You don't expect to recover any of this old debt, do you?
Mrs. P. Yes; the firm has recovered itself, and I received a notice two months ago that some settlement might be anticipated.
Sunny. Why, with principal and interest this debt has been more than doubled in twenty years.
Mrs. P. But it may be years yet before it will be paid off, if ever.
Sunny.
