STER

Nearly everybody in New Orleans knew Old Easter, the candy-woman. She
was very black, very wrinkled, and very thin, and she spoke with a wiry,
cracked voice that would have been pitiful to hear had it not been so
merry and so constantly heard in the funny high laughter that often
announced her before she turned a street corner, as she hobbled along by
herself with her old candy-basket balanced on her head.

People who had known her for years said that she had carried her basket
in this way for so long that she could walk more comfortably with it
than without it. Certainly her head and its burden seemed to give her
less trouble than her feet, as she picked her way along the uneven
_banquettes_ with her stick. But then her feet were tied up in so many
rags that even if they had been young and strong it would have been hard
for her to walk well with them. Sometimes the rags were worn inside her
shoes and sometimes outside, according to the shoes she wore. All of
these were begged or picked out of trash heaps, and she was not at all
particular about them, just so they were big enough to hold her old
rheumatic feet--though she showed a special liking for men's boots.

When asked why she preferred to wear boots she would always answer,
promptly, "Ter keep off snake bites"; and then she would almost
certainly, if there were listeners enough, continue in this fashion:
"You all young trash forgits dat I dates back ter de snake days in dis
town. Why, when I was a li'l' gal, about _so_ high, I was walkin' along
Canal Street one day, barefeeted, an' not lookin' down, an' terrectly I
feel some'h'n' nip me '_snip!_' in de big toe, an' lookin' quick I see a
grea' big rattlesnake--"

As she said "snip," the street children who were gathered around her
would start and look about them, half expecting to see a great snake
suddenly appear upon the flag-stones of the pavement.

[Illustration: OLD EASTER]

At this the old woman would scream with laughter as she assured them
that there were thousands of serpents there now that they couldn't see,
because they had only "single sight," and that many times when they
thought mosquitoes were biting them they were being "'tackted by deze
heah onvisible snakes."

It is easy to see why the children would gather about her to listen to
her talk.

Nobody knew how old Easter was. Indeed, she did not know herself, and
when any one asked her, she would say, "I 'spec' I mus' be 'long about