e trees and gardens, and the sloping lawns blazed
with flowers. My mother said it was much prettier than Kaskaskia; not
crowded with traffic; not overrun with foreigners. Everybody seemed
to be making a fete, to be visiting or receiving visits. At sunset the
fiddle and the banjo began their melody. The young girls would gather
at Barbeau's or Le Compt's or Pensonneau's--at any one of a dozen
places, and the young men would follow. It was no trouble to have
a dance every evening, and on feast days and great days there were
balls, of course. The violin ran in my family. Celeste Barbeau would
call across the hedge to my mother,--

"Manette, will Monsieur Le Compt play for us again to-night?"

And Monsieur Le Compt or anybody who could handle a bow would play for
her. Celeste was the life of the place: she sang like a lark, she was
like thistledown in the dance, she talked well, and was so handsome
that a stranger from New Orleans stopped in the street to gaze after
her. At the auberge he said he was going au Pay,[2] but after he saw
Celeste Barbeau he stayed in Caho'. I have heard my mother tell--who
often saw it combed out--that Celeste's long black hair hung below her
knees, though it was so curly that half its length was taken up by the
natural creping of the locks.

The old French women, especially about Pain Court and Caho', loved
to go into their children's bedrooms and sit on the side of the bed,
telling stories half the night. It was part of the general good time.
And thus they often found out what the girls were thinking about; for
women of experience need only a hint. It is true old Madame Barbeau
had never been even au Kaw;[3] but one may live and grow wise without
crossing the rigoles north and south, or the bluffs and river east and
west.

"Gra'mere, Manette is sleepy," Celeste would say, when my mother was
with her.

"Well, I will go to my bed," the grandmother would promise. But still
she sat and joined in the chatter. Sometimes the girls would doze, and
wake in the middle of a long tale. But Madame Barbeau heard more than
she told, for she said to her husband:--

"It may come to pass that the widow Chartrant's Gabriel will be making
proposals to Alexis for little Celeste."

"Poor lad," said the grandfather, "he has nothing to back his
proposals with. It will do him no good."

And so it proved. Gabriel Chartrant was the leader of the young men
as Celeste was of the girls. But he only inherited the