Sure, the Union's the place for the likes of him, so long as he bides

above."

But be this time their car had come by, an' up wid thim, an' off they dhruv.

I'd ne'er ha' thought Patsy'd say that; an' he didn't belike-I dunno

But it's on'y the truth if he did. A burthen? Bedad, I'm so.
An' Pat, that's a rale good son, and has been all the days of his life,
It's the quare thanks I'm givin' him now, to be starvin' the childher
and wife.

For I often considher a sayin' we have: "Whin it's little ye've got,
It's the hunger ye'll find at the botthom, if many dip spoons in your

pot."

But if wanst they were shut o' meself, an' the Agint 'ud wait for a

bit,

They might weather the worst o' the throuble, an' keep the ould roof o'er thim yit.

But suppose they're put out afther all, an' packed off to the divil knows where,

An' I up away in the House, I might never so happin to hear;
An' I'd liefer not know it for certin. Och! to think the ould place

was a roon,

Wid naught left save the rims o' four walls, that the weeds 'ud be coverin' soon;

An' the bastes o' the field walkin' in; an' the hole where the hearth

was filled

Wid the briers; an' no thrace o' the shed that I helped me poor father to build,

An' I but a slip of a lad, an' that plased to be handlin' the tools, I'most hammered the head off each nail that I dhruv. Och, it's boys that are fools.

'Tis sevin mile good into Westport; I never could thramp it so far,

But Tim Daly dhrives there of a Friday; he'll loan me a sate on his

car.

An' Friday's to-morra, ochone! so I'm near now to seein' me last O' Barney, an' Pat, an' the childher, an' all the ould times seem past.

I remimber the House goin' by it. It stands on a bit of a rise. Stone-black, lookin' over the lan', wid its windows all starin' like

eyes;

And its lonesome an' sthrange I'll be feelin', wid ne'er a frind's face

to behould;

An' the days 'ill go dhreary an' slow. But I'm ould, plase God, I'm ould.

"POSSON JONE"."1

BY GEORGE W. CABLE.

[GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE: An American journalist and novelist; born in New Orleans, La., October 12, 1844. His works include: "Old Creole Days" (1879), "The Grandissimes" (1880), "Madame Delphine" (1881), "Dr. Sevier" (1883), "The Creoles of Louisiana (1884), "The Silent South" (1885), "John March, Southerner," "Bonaventure," "Strange True Stories of Louisiana," "The Busy Man's Bible," and "The Negro Question."]

To Jules St.-Ange-elegant little heathen-there yet remained at manhood a remembrance of having been to school, and of having been taught by a stony-headed Capuchin that the world is round-for example, like a cheese. This round world is a cheese to be eaten through, and Jules had nibbled quite into his cheese world already at twenty-two.

He realized this as he idled about one Sunday morning where the intersection of Royal and Conti streets some seventy years ago formed a central corner of New Orleans. Yes, yes, the trouble was he had been wasteful and honest. He discussed the matter with that faithful friend and confidant, Baptiste, his yellow body servant. They concluded that, papa's patience and tante's pin money having been gnawed away quite to the rind, there were left open only these few easily enumerated resorts: to go to work- they shuddered; to join Major Innerarity's filibustering expedition; or else— why not?-to try some games of confidence. At twenty-two one must begin to be something. Nothing else tempted; could that avail? One could but try. It is noble to try; and, besides, they were hungry. If one could "make the friendship" of some person from the country, for instance, with money, not expert at cards or dice, but, as one would say, willing to learn, one might find cause to say some "Hail Marys."

The sun broke through a clearing sky, and Baptiste pronounced it good for luck. There had been a hurricane in the

1 Copyright, 1876, by D. Appleton & Co. Published by permission.

night. The weed-grown tile roofs were still dripping, and from lofty brick and low adobe walls a rising steam responded to the summer sunlight. Upstreet, and across the Rue du Canal, one could get glimpses of the gardens in Faubourg Ste. Marie standing in silent wretchedness, so many tearful Lucretias, tattered victims of the storm. Short remnants of the wind now and then came down the narrow street in erratic puffs heavily laden with odors of broken boughs and torn flowers, skimmed the little pools of rain water in the deep ruts of the unpaved street, and suddenly went away to nothing, like a juggler's butterflies or a young man's money.

It was very picturesque, the Rue Royale. The rich and poor met together. The locksmith's swinging key creaked next door to the bank; across the way, crouching, mendicantlike, in the shadow of a great importing house, was the mud laboratory of the mender of broken combs. Light balconies overhung the rows of showy shops and stores open for trade this Sunday morning, and pretty Latin faces of the higher class glanced over their savagely pronged railings upon the passers below. At some windows hung lace curtains, flannel duds at some, and at others only the scraping and sighing one-hinged shutter groaning toward Paris after its neglectful

master.

M. St.-Ange stood looking up and down the street for nearly an hour. But few ladies, only the inveterate massgoers, were out. About the entrance of the frequent cafés the masculine gentility stood leaning on canes, with which now one and now another beckoned to Jules, some even adding pantomimic hints of the social cup.

M. St.-Ange remarked to his servant without turning his head that somehow he felt sure he should soon return those bons that the mulatto had lent him.

"What will you do with them?"

"Me!" said Baptiste, quickly; "I will go and see the bullfight in the Place Congo.'

"There is to be a bullfight? But where is M. Cayetano? "Ah, got all his affairs wet in the tornado. Instead of his circus, they are to have a bullfight-not an ordinary bullfight with sick horses, but a buffalo and tiger fight. I would

Two or three persons ran to the opposite corner, and commenced striking at something with their canes. Others fol

lowed. Can M. St.-Ange and servant, who hasten forward can the Creoles, Cubans, Spaniards, San Domingo refugees, and other loungers can they hope it is a fight? They hurry forward. Is a man in a fit? The crowd pours in from the side streets. Have they killed a so-long snake? Bareheaded shopmen leave their wives, who stand upon chairs. The crowd huddles and packs. Those on the outside make little leaps into the air, trying to be tall.

"What is the matter?"

"Have they caught a real live rat?"

"Who is hurt?" asks some one in English.

66

Personne," replies a shopkeeper; "a man's hat blow' in the gutter; but he has it now. Jules pick' it. See, that is the man, head and shoulders on top the res'."

"He in the homespun?" asks a second shopkeeper. "Humph! an Américain-a West Floridian; bah!" "But wait; 'st! he is speaking; listen!"

"To who is he speak

"Sh-sh-sh! to Jules."

"Jules who?"

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Silence, you! To Jules St.-Ange, what howe me a bill since long time. Sh-sh-sh!"

Then the voice was heard.

Its owner was a man of giant stature, with a slight stoop in his shoulders, as if he was making a constant, good-natured attempt to accommodate himself to ordinary doors and ceilings. His bones were those of an ox. His face was marked more by weather than age, and his narrow brow was bald and smooth. He had instantaneously formed an opinion of Jules St.-Ange, and the multitude of words, most of them lingual curiosities, with which he was rasping the wide-open ears of his listeners, signified, in short, that, as sure as his name was Parson Jones, the little Creole was a "plum gentleman."

M. St.-Ange bowed and smiled, and was about to call attention, by both gesture and speech, to a singular object on top of the still uncovered head, when the nervous motion of the Américain anticipated him, as, throwing up an immense hand, he drew down a large roll of bank notes. The crowd laughed, the West Floridian joining, and began to disperse.

"Why, that money belongs to Smyrny Church," said the giant.

"You are very dengerous to make your money expose like

that, Misty Posson Jone'," said St.-Ange, counting it with his

eyes.

The countryman gave a start and smile of surprise.

"How d'dyou know my name was Jones?" he asked; but, without pausing for the Creole's answer, furnished in his reckless way some further specimens of West-Floridian English; and the conciseness with which he presented full intelligence of his home, family, calling, lodging house, and present and future plans, might have passed for consummate art, had it not been the most run-wild nature. "And I've done been to Mobile, you know, on business for Bethesdy Church. It's the on'yest time I ever been from home; now you wouldn't of believed that, would you? But I admire to have saw you, that's so. You've got to come and eat with me. Me and my boy ain't been fed yit. What might one call yo' name? Jools? Come on, Jools. Come on, Colossus. That's my niggah—his name's Colossus of Rhodes. Is that yo' yallah boy, Jools? Fetch him along, Colossus. It seems like a special providence. Jools, do you believe in a special providence?” Jules said he did.

The new-made friends moved briskly off, followed by Baptiste and a short, square, old negro, very black and grotesque, who had introduced himself to the mulatto, with many glittering and cavernous smiles, as "d'body sarvant of d'Rev'n' Mr. Jones."

Parson

Both pairs enlivened their walk with conversation. Jones descanted upon the doctrine he had mentioned, as illustrated in the perplexities of cotton growing, and concluded that there would always be "a special providence again' cotton untell folks quits a pressin' of it and haulin' of it on Sundays!"

"Je dis," said St.-Ange, in response, "I thing you is juz right. I believe, me, strong-strong in the improvidence, yes. You know my papa he hown a sugah plantation, you know. 'Jules, me son,' he say one time to me, 'I goin' to make one baril sugah to fedge the moze high price in New Orleans.' Well, he take his bez baril sugah-I nevah see a so careful man like me papa always to make a so beautiful sugah et sirop. 'Jules, go at Father Pierre an' ged this lill pitcher fill with holy water, an' tell him sen' his tin bucket, and I will make it fill with quitte.' I ged the holy water; my papa sprinkle it over the baril, an' make one cross on the 'ead of the baril."

66

'Why, Jools," said Parson Jones, "that didn't do no good."