father played the flute delightfully; Carlo, by ear, played the violin
pleasantly; and there, on the deck of that old flatboat, before an
indulgent audience, our improvised instruments waked the sleeping
creatures of the centuries-old forest and called around us the wondering
fishes and alligators. My father and Alix played admirable duos on flute
and harp, and sometimes Carlo added the notes of his violin or played for
us cotillons and Spanish dances. Finally Suzanne and I, to please papa,
sang together Spanish songs, or songs of the negroes, that made our
auditors nearly die a-laughing; or French ballads, in which Alix would
mingle her sweet voice. Then Carlo, with gestures that always frightened
Patrick, made the air resound with Italian refrains, to which almost
always succeeded the Irish ballads of the Gordons.

But when it happened that the flatboat made an early stop to let our men
rest, the programme was changed. Celeste and Maggie went ashore to cook
the two suppers there. Their children gathered wood and lighted the
fires. Mario and Gordon, or Gordon and 'Tino, went into the forest with
their guns. Sometimes my father went along, or sat down by M. Carpentier,
who was the fisherman. Alix, too, generally sat near her husband, her
sketch-book on her knee, and copied the surrounding scene. Often, tired of
fishing, we gathered flowers and wild fruits. I generally staid near Alix
and her husband, letting Suzanne run ahead with Patrick and Tom. It was a
strange thing, the friendship between my sister and this little Irish boy.
Never during the journey did he address one word to me; he never answered
a question from Alix; he ran away if my father or Joseph spoke to him; he
turned pale and hid if Mario looked at him. But with Suzanne he talked,
laughed, obeyed her every word, called her Miss Souzie, and was never so
happy as when serving her. And when, twenty years afterward, she made a
journey to Attakapas, the wealthy M. Patrick Gordon, hearing by chance of
her presence, came with his daughter to make her his guest for a week,