promises.




XII.

LITTLE PARIS.


[So the carriage rolled along the margin of Bayou Teche, with two big
trunks besides Monsieur's on back and top, and a smaller one, lent by
Alix, lashed underneath; but shawls, mats, and baskets were all left
behind with the Carpentiers. The first stop was at the plantation and
residence of Captain Patterson, who "offered his hand in the English way,
saying only, 'Welcomed, young ladies.'" In 1795, the narrator stops to
say, one might see in and about New Orleans some two-story houses; but
along the banks of Bayou Teche, as well as on the Mississippi, they were
all of one sort,--like their own; like Captain Patterson's,--a single
ground floor with three rooms facing front and three back. Yet the very
next stop was at a little cottage covered with roses and with its front
yard full of ducks and geese,--"'A genuine German cottage,' said
papa,"--where a German girl, to call her father, put a great ox's horn to
her lips and blew a loud blast. Almost every one was English or German
till they came to where was just beginning to be the town of Franklin. One
Harlman, a German, offered to exchange all his land for the silver watch
that it best suited Monsieur to travel with. The exchange was made, the
acts were all signed and sealed, and--when Suzanne, twenty years after,
made a visit to Attakapas there was Harlman and his numerous family still
in peaceful possession of the place.... "And I greatly fear that when some