Martinette had arisen, and began to take slow leave of the woman. She turned at the cabin door to observe tentatively: “I reckon it’s Wilkins tells you how the folks they talk, yonda up to Mr. Hallet’s.”
She did not go to the store as she had intended, but walked with a dragging step back to her home. The silver dollars clicked in her pocket as she walked. She felt like flinging them across the field; they seemed to her somehow the price of shame.
The sun had sunk, and twilight was settling like a silver beam upon the bayou and enveloping the fields in a gray mist. Evariste, slim and slouchy, was waiting for his daughter in the cabin door. He had lighted a fire of sticks and branches, and placed the kettle before it to boil. He met the girl with his slow serious, questioning eyes, astonished to see her empty-handed.
“How come you didn’ bring nuttin’ f’om de sto’, Martinette?”
She entered and flung her gingham sun-bonnet upon a chair. “No, I didn’ go yonda;” and with sudden exasperation: “You got to go take back that money; you musn’ git no picture took.”
“But, Martinette,” her father mildly interposed, “I promise ‘im; an’ he’s goin’ give me some mo’ money w’en he finish.”
“If he give you a ba’el o’ money, you musn’ git no picture took. You know what he want to put un’neath that picture, fo’ ev’body to read?” She could not tell him the whole hideous truth as she had heard it distorted from Aunt Dicey’s lips; she would not hurt him that much. “He’s goin’ to write: ‘This is one ’Cajun o’ the Bayou Têche.’” Evariste winced.
“How you know?” he asked.
“I yeard so. I know it’s true.”
The water in the kettle was boiling. He went and poured a small quantity upon the coffee which he had set there to drip. Then he said to her: “I reckon you jus’ as well go care dat two dolla’ back, tomo’ mo’nin’; me, I’ll go yonda ketch a mess o’ fish in Carancro lake.”
