Page:The cotton kingdom (Volume 2).djvu/43

 Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into darkness, Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair, Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine."

The tall, elderly, busy housewife bustled about with preparations for supper, while we learned that they had been settled here forty years, and had never had reason to regret their emigration. The old man had learnt French, but no English. The woman could speak some "American," as she properly termed it. Asking her about musquitoes, we received a reply in French, that they were more abundant some years than others; then, as no quantitative adjective of sufficient force occurred to her, she added, "Three years ago, oh! heaps of musquitoes, sir, heaps! worse as now."

She laid the table to the last item, and prepared everything nicely, but called a negro girl to wait upon us. The girl stood quiet behind us, the mistress helping us, and practically anticipating all our wants.

The supper was of venison, in ragoût, with a sauce that savoured of the south of France; there was a side dish of hominy, a jug of sweet milk, and wheat-bread in loaf—the first since Houston.

In an evening smoke, upon the settle, we learned that there were many Creoles about here, most of whom learned English, and had their children taught English at the schools. The Americans would not take the trouble to learn French. They often intermarried. A daughter of their own was the wife of an American neighbour. We asked if they knew of a distinct people here called Acadians. Oh yes, they knew many settled in the vicinity, descended from some nation that came here in the last century. They had now no peculiarities. There were but few free negroes just here, but at Opelousas and Niggerville there were many, some of whom were rich