the warehouses and rattling down the long
dusty-white road that led across the bottomland fields to the bluff. It
must have been a good spring out here; though this was only the
beginning of July, the corn was already up to a man's waist.

Auguste felt he would look better wearing his beaver hat as they rode
along. He put it on his head, pulling the rolled-up brim down with both
hands, and set it in place with a pat on the crown.

"So, you are now a finished graduate of St. George's School?" said
Elysee with a smile. "Monsieur Charles Winans has sent long letters full
of good reports about you."

Aunt Nicole reached over and squeezed his hand. "We're proud of you,
Auguste." Her soft, fleshy hand was warm, and her eyes sparkled at him.
He sensed a feeling in her that was more than the affection of an aunt
for a nephew. She now had eight children, he knew, and every time he
had seen her and Frank together, they had seemed very much in love. But
Aunt Nicole was a big woman. She had room in her big heart, perhaps, for
more than one love.

Embarrassed by what he felt radiating from her, Auguste turned to
Elysee.

"If I learned anything at St. George's, I owe it all to the way you
prepared me, Grandpapa. Anyone who could take a boy who could barely
speak English, and in two years cram enough knowledge into his head for
him to go to secondary school in New York City--such a man is no
ordinary teacher."

"You were no ordinary pupil, my boy," said Elysee, leaning back in the
carriage, his hands resting one on top of the other on his silver-headed
cane. "And Pere Isaac laid down a solid foundation in that head of
yours. Those Jesuits are good for that, at least, black-hearted rogues
though they may be in most other respects."

"Papa!" Nicole gave Elysee a reproving frown.

Elysee quickly patted her knee. "Forgive me, my child. Let me not shake
the faith that sustains you."

"It would take more than your wicked tongue to disturb my faith, Papa,"
Nicole said with a wry smile.

It was amusing to hear Grandpapa and Aunt Nicole bicker about what the
whites called "faith." As the carriage rolled along, Auguste recalled
the many lectures he had listened to on Jesus and the Trinity at St.
George's, which was affiliated with the Episcopal Church. But Auguste
had walked with the White Bear and talked with the Turtle. He _knew_
them as he had never known the white people's God, and what went on in
their dimly lit, waxy-smelling