! A name to conjure with for wickedness.

"W'y, yaas," continued Sylves', "lots of boys I know dere. Henri an'
Joseph Lascaud an' Arthur, dey write me what money dey mek' in cigar.
I can mek' a livin' too. I can mek' fine cigar. See how I do in New
Orleans in de winter."

"Oh, Sylves'," wailed Louisette, "den you'll forget me!"

"Non, non, ma chere," he answered tenderly. "I will come back when the
bayou overflows again, an' maman an' Louisette will have fine present."

Ma'am Mouton had bowed her head on her hands, and was rocking to and
fro in an agony of dry-eyed misery.

Sylves' went to her side and knelt. "Maman," he said softly, "maman,
you mus' not cry. All de boys go 'way, an' I will come back reech, an'
you won't have fo' to work no mo'."

But Ma'am Mouton was inconsolable.

It was even as Sylves' had said. In the summer-time the boys of the
Bayou Teche would work in the field or in the town of Franklin,
hack-driving and doing odd jobs. When winter came, there was a general
exodus to New Orleans, a hundred miles away, where work was to be had
as cigar-makers. There is money, plenty of it, in cigar-making, if one
can get in the right place. Of late, however, there had been a general
slackness of the trade. Last winter oftentimes Sylves' had walked the
streets out of work. Many were the Creole boys who had gone to Chicago
to earn a living, for the cigar-making trade flourishes there
wonderfully. Friends of Sylves' had gone, and written home glowing
accounts of the money to be had almost for the asking. When one's
blood leaps for new scenes, new adventures, and one needs money, what
is the use of frittering away time alternately between the Bayou Teche
and New Orleans? Sylves' had brooded all summer, and now that
September had come, he was determined to go.

Louisette, the orphan, the girl-lover, whom everyone in Franklin knew
would some day be Ma'am Mouton's daughter-in-law, wept and pleaded in
vain. Sylves' kissed her quivering lips.

"Ma chere," he would say, "t'ink, I will bring you one fine diamon'
ring, nex' spring, when de bayou overflows again."

Louisette would fain be content with this promise. As for Ma'am
Mouton, she seemed to have grown ages older. Her Sylves' was going
from her; Sylves', whose trips to New Orleans had been a yearly source
of heart-break, was going far away for months to that mistily wicked
city, a thousand miles away.

October came, and Sylves' had gone.