sitions. Thus did Landi and
his family pass their time.

Hugot was cook, valet, groom, butler, and errand boy. I have already
stated that no other domestic, male or female, lived in the house:
Hugot, therefore, was chambermaid as well. His manifold occupations,
however, were not so difficult to fulfil as might at first appear. The
Colonel was a man of simple habits. He had learned these when a
soldier, and he brought up his sons to live like himself. He ate plain
food, drank only water, and slept upon a camp-bed with a buffalo-robe
and a blanket. A laundress in Point Coupee kept the linen clean; and
Hugot was not near so busy with house affairs as you might suppose. He
made daily journeys to the village--to the market, and the post-office,
from which he often brought letters, many of them with large seals, and
the arms of a prince upon them! Sometimes, too, after a steamer had
called at the landing, parcels arrived containing books--scientific
books they were--or curious instruments. Notwithstanding all this,
there was nothing mysterious about the life of the hunter-naturalist.
He was no misanthrope. He often visited the village, and would gossip
with old hunters and others who lived there. The villagers knew him as
the "old Colonel," and respected him. They only wondered at his tastes
as a naturalist, which to them seemed strange. They wondered, too, how
he managed to keep house without a maid-servant. But the Colonel did
not trouble his head about their conjectures. He only laughed at their
curious inquiries, and remained on as good terms as ever. His boys,
too, as they grew up became great favourites with all. They were the
best shots of their age, could ride a horse with any, could swim the
Mississippi, paddle a canoe, fling a lasso, or spear a catfish, as
though they had been full-grown men. They were, in fact, boy-men; and
as such were regarded by the simple villagers, who instinctively felt
the superiority which education and training had given to these youths
over their own uneducated minds. The boys, notwithstanding these
advantages, were affable with the villagers; hence the respect in which
they were universally held.

None of his neighbours ever visited the Colonel, except on matters of
business. Indeed he had no visitors of any sort, if we except one or
two of his former military associates, who lived at New Orleans, and
came up to his house about once a-year to talk over old times, an