A Night in Acadie

There was nothing to do on the plantation so Telèsphore, having a few dollars in his pocket, thought he would go down and spend Sunday in the vicinity of Marksville. There was really nothing more to do in the vicinity of Marksville than in the neighborhood of hisown small farm; but Elvina would not be down there, nor Amaranthe, nor any of Ma'me Valtour'sdaughters to harass him with doubt, to torture him with indecision, to turn his very soul into aweather-cock for love's fair winds to play with. Telèsphore at twenty-eight had long felt the need of a wife. His home without one was like anempty temple in which there is no altar, no offering. So keenly did he realize the necessity that adozen times at least during the past year he had been on the point of proposing marriage to almostas many different young women of the neighborhood. Therein lay the difficulty, the trouble whichTelèsphore experienced in making up his mind. Elvina's eyes were beautiful and had often temptedhim to the verge of a declaration. But her skin was over swarthy for a wife; and her movements wereslow and heavy; he doubted she had Indian blood, and we all know what Indian blood is fortreachery. Amaranthe presented in her person none of these obstacles to matrimony. If her eyeswere not so handsome as Elvina's, her skin was fine, and being slender to a fault, she moved swiftlyabout her household affairs, or when she walked the country lanes in going to church or to thestore. Telèsphore had once reached the point of believing that Amaranthe would make him anexcellent wife. He had even started out one day with the intention of declaring himself, when, as thegod of chance would have it, Ma'me Valtour espied him passing in the road and enticed him to enterand partake of coffee and "baignés." He would have been a man of stone to have resisted, or tohave remained insensible to the charms and accomplishments of the Valtour girls. Finally there wasGanache's widow, seductive rather than handsome, with a good bit of property in her own right. While Telèsphore was considering his chances of happiness or even success with Ganache's widow, she married a younger man. From these embarrassing conditions, Telèsphore sometimes felt himself forced to escape; tochange his environment for a day or two and thereby gain a few new insights by shifting his point ofview. It was Saturday morning that he decided to spend Sunday in the vicinity of Marksville, and thesame afternoon found him waiting at the country station for the south-bound train. He was a robust young fellow with good, strong features and a somewhat determined expression--despite his vacillations in the choice of a wife. He was dressed rather carefully in navy-blue "storeclothes" that fitted well because anything would have fitted Telèsphore. He had been freshly shavedand trimmed and carried an umbrella. He wore-a little tilted over one eye-a straw hat inpreference to the conventional gray felt; for no other reason than that his uncle Telèsphore wouldhave worn a felt, and a battered one at that. His whole conduct of life had been planned on lines indirect contradistinction to those of his uncle Telèsphore, whom he was thought in early youth togreatly resemble. The elder Telèsphore could not read nor write, therefore the younger had made itthe object of his existence to acquire these accomplishments. The uncle pursued the avocations ofhunting, fishing and moss-picking; employments which the nephew held in detestation.