Louisiana

"What do ye want me to do?" he asked.

She put her hand on his shoulder and tried to laugh again.

"To pretend you don't know me – to pretend I have never been here before. That's joke enough, isn't it? They will think so when I tell them the truth. You slow old father! Why don't you laugh?"

"P'r'aps," he said, "it's on account o' me bein' slow, Louisianny. Mebbe I shall begin arter a while."

"Don't begin at the wrong time," she said, still keeping up her feverish laugh, "or you'll spoil it all. Now come along in and – and pretend you don't know me," she continued, drawing him forward by the arm. "They might suspect something if we stay so long. All you've got to do is to pretend you don't know me."

"That's so, Louisianny," with a kindly glance downward at her excited face as he followed her out. "Thar aint no call fur me to do nothin' else, is there – just pretend I don't know ye?"

It was wonderful how well he did it, too. When she preceded him into the room the girl was quivering with excitement. He might break down, and it would be all over in a second. But she looked Ferrol boldly in the face when she made her first speech.

"This is the gentleman of the house," she said. "I found him on the back porch. He had just come in. He has been kind enough to say we may stay until the storm is over."

"Oh, yes," said he hospitably, "stay an' welcome. Ye aint the first as has stopped over. Storms come up sorter suddent, an' we haint the kind as turns folks away."

Ferrol thanked him, Olivia joining in with a murmur of gratitude. They were very much indebted to him for his hospitality; they considered themselves very fortunate.

Their host received their protestations with much equanimity.

"If ye'd like to set out on the front porch and watch the storm come up," he said, "thar's seats thar. Or would ye druther set here? Women-folks is gen'rally fond o' settin' in-doors whar thar's a parlor."

But they preferred the porch, and followed him out upon it.

Having seen them seated, he took a chair himself. It was a split-seated chair, painted green, and he tilted it back against a pillar of the porch and applied himself to the full enjoyment of a position more remarkable for ease than elegance. Ferrol regarded him with stealthy rapture, and drank in every word he uttered.

"This," he had exclaimed delightedly to Olivia, in private – "why, this is delightful! These are the people we have read of. I scarcely believed in them before. I would not have missed it for the world!"

"In gin'ral, now," their entertainer proceeded, "wimmin-folk is fonder o' settin' in parlors. My wife was powerful sot on her parlor. She wasn't never satisfied till she hed one an' hed it fixed up to her notion. She was allers tradin' fur picters fur it. She tuk a heap o' pride in her picters. She allers had it in her mind that her little gal should have a showy parlor when she growed up."

"You have a daughter?" said Ferrol.

Their host hitched his chair a little to one side. He bent forward to expectorate, and then answered with his eyes fixed upon some distant point toward the mountains.

"Wa-al, yes," he said; "but she aint yere, Louisianny aint."

Miss Ferrol gave a little start, and immediately made an effort to appear entirely at ease.

"Did you say," asked Ferrol, "that your daughter's name was – "

"Louisianny," promptly. "I come from thar."

Louisiana got up and walked to the opposite end of the porch.

"The storm will be upon us in a few minutes," she said. "It is beginning to rain now. Come and look at this cloud driving over the mountain-top."

Ferrol rose and went to her. He stood for a moment looking at the cloud, but plainly not thinking of it.

"His daughter's name is Louisiana," he said, in an undertone. "Louisiana! Isn't that delicious?"

Suddenly, even as he spoke, a new idea occurred to him.

"Why," he exclaimed, "your name is Louise, isn't it? I think Olivia said so."

"Yes," she answered, "my name is Louise."

"How should you have liked it," he inquired, absent-mindedly, "if it had been Louisiana?"

She answered him with a hard coolness which it startled him afterward to remember.

"How would you have liked it?" she said.

They were driven back just then by the rain, which began to beat in upon their end of the porch. They were obliged to return to Olivia and Mr. Rogers, who were engaged in an animated conversation.

The fact was that, in her momentary excitement, Olivia had plunged into conversation as a refuge. She had suddenly poured forth a stream of remark and query which had the effect of spurring up her companion to a like exhibition of frankness. He had been asking questions, too.

"She's ben tellin' me," he said, as Ferrol approached, "thet you're a littery man, an' write fur the papers – novel-stories, an' pomes an' things. I never seen one before – not as I know on."

"I wonder why not!" remarked Ferrol. "We are plentiful enough."

"Air ye now?" he asked reflectively. "I had an idee thar was only one on ye now an' ag'in – jest now an' ag'in."

He paused there to shake his head.

"I've often wondered how ye could do it," he said, "I couldn't. Thar's some as thinks they could if they tried, but I wa'n't never thataway – I wa'n't never thataway. I haint no idee I could do it, not if I tried ever so. Seems to me," he went on, with the air of making an announcement of so novel a nature that he must present it modestly, "seems to me, now, as if them as does it must hev a kinder gift fur'it, now. Lord! I couldn't write a novel. I wouldn't know whar to begin."

"It is difficult to decide where," said Ferrol.

He did not smile at all. His manner was perfect – so full of interest, indeed, that Mr. Rogers quite warmed and expanded under it.

"The scenes on 'em all, now, bein' mostly laid in Bagdad, would be agin me, if nothin' else war," he proceeded.

"Being laid – ?" queried Ferrol.

"In Bagdad or – wa-al, furrin parts tharabouts. Ye see I couldn't tell nothin' much about no place but North Ca'liny, an' folks wouldn't buy it."

"But why not?" exclaimed Ferrol.

"Why, Lord bless ye!" he said, hilariously, "they'd know it wa'n't true. They'd say in a minnit: 'Why, thar's thet fool Rogers ben a writin' a pack o' lies thet aint a word on it true. Thar aint no castles in Hamilton County, an' thar aint no folks like these yere. It just aint so! I 'lowed thet thar was the reason the novel-writers allers writ about things a-happenin' in Bagdad. Ye kin say most anythin' ye like about Bagdad an' no one cayn't contradict ye."

"I don't seem to remember many novels of – of that particular description," remarked Ferrol, in a rather low voice. "Perhaps my memory – "

"Ye don't?" he queried, in much surprise. "Waal now, jest you notice an' see if it aint so. I haint read many novels myself. I haint read but one – "

"Oh!" interposed Ferrol. "And it was a story of life in Bagdad."

"Yes; an' I've heard tell of others as was the same. Hance Claiborn, now, he was a-tellen me of one."