Papa, Mr. Pierre Bossier, planter of St. James parish, had been fifteen
days gone to the city (New Orleans) in his skiff with two rowers, Louis
and Baptiste, when, returning, he embraced us all, gave us some caramels
which he had in his pockets, and announced that he counted on leaving us
again in four or five days to go to Attakapas. He had long been speaking
of going there. Papa and mamma were German, and papa loved to travel. When
he first came to Louisiana it was with no expectation of staying. But here
he saw mamma; he loved her, married her, and bought a very fine
plantation, where he cultivated indigo. You know they blue clothes with
that drug, and dye cottonade and other things. There we, their eight
children, were born....

[Illustration: PART OF FRANÇOIS'S FIRST PAGE.]

When my father used to go to New Orleans he went in his skiff, with a
canopy over his head to keep off the sun, and two rowers, who sang as
they rowed. Sometimes papa took me with him, and it was very entertaining.
We would pass the nights of our voyage at the houses of papa's friends
[des zami de papa]. Sometimes mamma would come, and Suzanne
always--always. She was the daughter next older than I. She barely missed
being a boy. She was eighteen years of age, went hunting with our father,
was skillful with a gun, and swam like a fish. Papa called her "my son."
You must understand the two boys were respectively but two years and three
months old, and papa, who greatly desired a son, had easily made one of
Suzanne. My father had brought a few books with him to Louisiana, and
among them, you may well suppose, were several volumes of travel. For
myself, I rarely touched them; but they were the only books that Suzanne
read. And you may well think, too, that my father had no sooner spoken of
his intention than Suzanne cried: