1897
CALINE
by Kate Chopin
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
Caline
The sun was just far enough in the west to send inviting shadows. In
the centre of a small field, and in the shade of a haystack which
was there, a girl lay sleeping. She had slept long and soundly, when
something awoke her as suddenly as if it had been a blow. She opened
her eyes and stared a moment up in the cloudless sky. She yawned and
stretched her long brown legs and arms, lazily. Then she arose,
never minding the bits of straw that clung to her black hair, to her
red bodice, and the blue cottonade skirt that did not reach her
naked ankles.
The log cabin in which she dwelt with her parents was just outside
the enclosure in which she had been sleeping. Beyond was a small
clearing that did duty as a cotton field. All else was dense wood,
except the long stretch that curved round the brow of the hill, and in
which glittered the steel rails of the Texas and Pacific road.
When Caline emerged from the shadow she saw a long train of
passenger coaches standing in view, where they must have stopped
abruptly. It was that sudden stopping which had awakened her; for such
a thing had not happened before within her recollection, and she
looked stupid, at first, with astonishment. There seemed to be
something wrong with the engine; and some of the passengers who
dismounted went forward to investigate the trouble. Others came
strolling along in the direction of the cabin, where Caline stood
under an old gnarled mulberry tree, staring. Her father had halted his
mule at the end of the cotton row, and stood staring also, leaning
upon his plow.
There were ladies in the party. They walked awkwardly in their
high-heeled boots over the rough, uneven ground, and held up their
skirts mincingly. They twirled parasols over their shoulders, and
laughed immoderately at the funny things which their masculine
companions were saying.
They tried to talk to Caline, but could not understand the French
patois with which she answered them.
One of the men- a pleasant-faced youngster- drew a sketch book
from his pocket and began to make a picture of the girl. She stayed
motionless, her hands behind her, and her wide eyes fixed earnestly
upon him.
Before he had finished there was a summons from the train, and all
went scampering hurriedly away. The engine screeched, it sent a few
lazy puffs into the still air, and in another moment or two had
vanished, bearing its human cargo with it.
Caline could not feel the same after that. She looked with new and
strange interest upon the trains of cars that passed so swiftly back
and forth across her vision, each day, and wondered whence these
people came, and whither they were going.
Her mother and father could not tell her, except to say that they
came from "loin la bas," and were going "Djieu sait e ou."
One day she walked miles down the track to talk with the old
flagman, who stayed down there by the big water tank. Yes, he knew.
Those people came from the great cities in the north, and were going
to the city in the south. He knew all about the city; it was a grand
place. He had lived there once. His sister lived there now, and she
would be glad enough to have so fine a girl as Caline to help her cook
and scrub, and tend the babies. And he thought Caline might earn as
much as five dollars a month, in the city.
So she went; in a new cottonade, and her Sunday shoes, with a
sacredly guarded scrawl that the flagman sent to his sister.
The woman lived in a tiny, stuccoed house, with green blinds, and
three wooden steps leading down to the banquette. There seemed to be
hundreds like it along the street. Over the house tops loomed the tall
masts of ships, and the hum of the French market could be heard on a
still morning.
Caline was at first bewildered. She had to readjust all her
preconceptions to fit the reality of it. The flagman's sister was a
kind and gentle taskmistress. At the end of a week or two she wanted
to know how the girl liked it all. Caline liked it very well, for it
was pleasant, on Sunday afternoons, to stroll with the children
under the great, solemn sugar sheds, or to sit upon the compressed
cotton bales, watching the stately steamers, the graceful boats, and
noisy little tugs that plied the waters of the Mississippi. And it
filled her with agreeable excitement to go to the French market, where
the handsome Gascon butchers were eager to present their compliments
and little Sunday bouquets to the pretty Acadian girl; and to throw
fistfuls of «lagniappe» into her basket.
When the woman asked her again after another week if she were
still pleased, she was not so sure. And again when she questioned
Caline the girl turned away, and went to sit behind the big, yellow
cistern, to cry unobserved. For she knew now that it was not the great
city and its crowds of people she had so eagerly sought, but the
pleasant-faced boy, who had made her picture that day under the
mulberry tree.
THE END
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