class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 29]"/> the curé only smiled at politics and turned the conversation back to family matters. He had a natural gift for divining men’s, women’s, children’s personal wants, and every one’s distinctively from every other one’s. So that to everybody he was an actual personal friend. He had been a long time in this region. It was he who buried Bonaventure’s mother. He was the connecting link between Bonaventure and the ex-governor. Whenever the curé met this man of worldly power, there were questions asked and answered about the lad.

A little after ’Thanase’s enlistment the priest and the ex-governor, who, if I remember right, was home only transiently from camp, met on the court-house square of Vermilionville, and stood to chat a bit, while others contemplated from across the deep mud of the street these two interesting representatives of sword and gown. Two such men standing at that time must naturally, one would say, have been talking of the strength of the defences around Richmond, or the Emperor Maximilian’s operations in Mexico, or Kirby Smith’s movements, hardly far enough away to make it seem comfortable. But in reality they were talking about ’Thanase.

“He cannot write,” said the curé; “and if he could, no one at home could read his letters.”

The ex-governor promised to look after him.

“And how,” he asked, “does Sosthène’s little orphan get on?”

The curé smiled. “He is well—physically. A queer, high-strung child; so old, yet so young. In some things he will be an infant as long as he lives; in others, he has been old from the cradle. He takes every thing in as much earnest as a man of fifty. What is to become of him?”

“Oh! he will come out all right,” said the ex-governor.

“That depends. Some children are born with fixed characters: you can tell almost from the start what they are going to be. Be they much or little, they are complete in themselves, and it makes comparatively little difference into what sort of a world you drop them.”

“’Thanase, for instance,” said the ex-governor.

“Yes, you might say ’Thanase; but never Bonaventure. He is the other type; just as marked and positive traits, but those traits not yet builded into character: a loose mass of building-material, and the beauty or ugliness to which such a nature may arrive depends on who and what has the building of it into form. What he may turn out to be at last will be no mere product of circumstances; he is too original for that. Oh, he’s a study! Another boy under the same circumstances might turn out entirely different; and yet it will make an immense difference how his experiences are allowed to combine with his nature.” The speaker paused a moment, while Bonaventure’s other friend stood smiling with interest; then the priest added, “He is just now struggling with his first great experience.”

“What is that?”

“It belongs,” replied the curé, smiling in his turn, “to the confidences of the confessional. But,” he added, with a little anxious look, “I can tell you what it will do; it will either sweeten his whole nature more and more, or else make it more and more bitter, from this time forth. 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.”

“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.

Zoséphine was not merely willing, but eager, to see the arrangements made. She beckoned the boy aside and spoke to him alone.

“You must go, Bonaventure. You will go, will you not—when I ask you? Think how fine that will be—to be educated! For me, I cannot endure an uneducated person. But—ah! ca sré vaillant, pour savoir lire. [It will be bully to know how to read.] Aie ya yaie!”—she stretched her eyes and bit her lip with delight—“C’est t’y gai, pour savoir écrire! [That’s fine to know how to write.] I will tell you a secret, dear Bonaventure. Any girl of sense is bound to think it much greater and finer for a man to read books than to ride horses. She may not want to, but she has to do it; she can’t help herself!”

Still Bonaventure looked at her mournfully. She tried again.

“When I say any girl of sense I include myself—of course! I think more of a boy—or man, either—who can write letters than of one who can play the fiddle. There, now, I have told you! And when you have learned those things, I will be proud of you! And besides, you know, if you don’t go, you make me lose my chance of learning the same things; but if you go, we will learn them together.”

He consented. She could not understand the expression of his face. She had expected gleams of delight. There were none. He went with silent docility, and without a tear; but also without a smile. When in his new home the curé from time to time stole glances at his face fixed in unconscious revery, it was full of a grim, unhappy satisfaction.

“Self is winning, or dying hard. I wish no ill to ’Thanase; but if there is to be any bad news of him, I hope, for the sake of this boy’s soul, it will come quickly.” So spoke the curé alone, to his cards.

CHAPTER VI.

MISSING.

The war was in its last throes even when ’Thanase enlisted. Weeks and months passed. Then a soldier coming home to Carancro—home-comers were growing plentiful—brought the first news of him. An officer making up a force of picked men for an expedition to carry important despatches eastward across the Mississippi and far away into Virginia had chosen ’Thanase. The evening the speaker left for home on his leave of absence ’Thanase was still in camp, but was to start the next morning. It was just after Sunday morning mass that Sosthène and Chaouache, with their families and friends, crowded around this bearer of tidings.

“Had ’Thanase been in any battles?”

“Yes, two or three.”

“And had not been wounded?”

“No, although he was the bravest fellow in his company.”

Sosthène and Chaouache looked at each other triumphantly, smiled, and swore two simultaneous oaths of admiration. Zoséphine softly pinched her mother, and whispered something. Madame Sosthène addressed the home-comer aloud:

“Did ’Thanase send no other message except that mere ‘How-d’ye all do?’”

“No.”

Zoséphine leaned upon her mother’s shoulder, and softly breathed:

“He is lying.”

The mother looked around upon her daughter in astonishment. The flash of scorn was just disappearing from the girl’s eyes. She gave a little smile and chuckle, and murmured, with her glance upon the man:

“He has no leave of absence. He is a deserter.”

Then Madame Sosthène saw two things at once: that the guess was a good one, and that Zoséphine had bidden childhood a final “adjieu.”

The daughter felt Bonaventure’s eyes upon her. He was standing only a step or two away. She gave him a