![]() “Can’t you see its red eyes twinkling in the f-holes? Can’t you smell the sulfur? You got to exercise that devil, Old Boudreaux, or you go fiddle yourself right down to hell.” When Young ’Dres see it, he commence to moan and wring his bandana. But Young ’Dres got a way with him, and everybody know Old Boudreaux ain’t got no more sense than a possum. “You bring your fiddle here, and I go prove it to you.” “Hmpf,” say Old Boudreaux, and he start back in the house. “I got the second sight, me, so I see things other people don’t.” “It’s as true as I’m standing here,” say Young ’Dres. “Go to bed, ’Dres Petitpas,” say Old Boudreaux. The faster he dance, the faster you play, and he laugh like mad and wave his forked tail so I was scared half to death.” Young ’Dres say: “Last night when you were playing ‘Jolie Blonde,’ I see a little red devil creep out of the f-holes and commence to dancing on your fingerboard. Old Boudreaux say: “What you talking about, boy?” So Young ’Dres go to Old Boudreaux and he say, “Old Boudreaux, I’m afraid for your soul.” Mary’s parish-that is, Young ’Dres himself-shouldn’t have the best fiddle-that is, Old Boudreaux’s Pap’s fiddle. Now, Young ’Dres think it’s a shame that the best fiddler in St. His old pap make it himself, back in eighteen-something, and when Old Boudreaux play, the dead get up and dance. He has a fiddle, and this fiddle is the sweetest fiddle anybody ever hear. Once there’s this old man called Old Boudreaux. How smart was he? Well, I tell you the story of ’Dres and the Fiddle, and you can judge for yourself. Tante Eulalie’s best stories were about Young Murderes Petitpas, who was like the grasshopper because he’d always rather fiddle than work, though ’Dres was too smart to get caught out in the cold. And if Murderes Petitpas came knocking at my door, I’d slip out the back. I thought if I ever went to Pierreville, and Ganie Fuselier or Old Savoie tell me the sky is blue, I’d go outside and check. The wonder was how the folks getting cheated never learned to be less trustful. Seemed to me like cheating was a way of life in Pierreville. Nobody can pass a test like that without cheating some. It was Ganelon Fuselier who won Belda, and Tante Eulalie was godmother to their second child, Denise. I thought Tante Eulalie was making it all up out of her head, but she swore it was true. And when they done that, they have to catch the oldest, meanest ’gator in Bayou Teche and make a gumbo out of him. He make them plow the swamp and sow it with dried chilies and bring them to harvest. She can’t make up her mind, her, so her old pap make a test for the young men, to see which will make the best son-in-law. Now, when Belda is fifteen, there are twenty young men all crazy to marry her. She tell me about her cousin Belda Guidry, the prettiest girl in the parish. When we sit spinning or weaving, she tell me about when she was a young girl, living with her pap and her good maman and her six brothers and three sisters near the little town of Pierreville. She name me Cadence and tell me stories-all the stories I tell you, cher. Tante Eulalie, she like my own mother, her. Who else around here has white skin and hair and pink eyes, eh? Hush now, and listen. The loup-garous love Tante Eulalie, but the girl love her most of all. On moonlit nights, she play her fiddle at the loup-garous’ ball. In return, the loup-garous build her a cabin out of cypress and palmetto leaves and bring her rice and indigo dye from town. She take piquons out of the loup-garous’ feet and bullets out of their hairy shoulders and dose their rheumatism and their mange. ![]() But she hide in the swamp same as they do, and they are all friends together. Tante Eulalie does not howl and grow hair on her body when the moon is full like the loup-garous. When she is a baby, the loup-garous find her floating on the bayou in an old pirogue and take her to Tante Eulalie. Her skin and hair are white like the feathers of a white egret and her eyes are pink like a possum’s nose. One time there is a girl lives out in the swamp. ![]() ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |