was scattered with the
husband's appliances for making Perique tobacco into "carats"--the
carat-press. Its small, iron-ratcheted, wooden windlass extended along
the top rail of the balustrade across one of the galerie's ends. Lines
of half-inch grass rope, for wrapping the carats into diminished bulk
and solid shape, lay along under foot. Beside one of the doors, in
deep hickory baskets, were the parcels of cured tobacco swaddled in
cotton cloths and ready for the torture of ropes and windlass. From
the joists overhead hung the pods of tobacco-seed for next year's
planting.

CHAPTER III.

THE HANDSHAKING.

There was news in Grande Pointe. The fair noon sky above, with its
peaceful flocks of clouds; the solemn, wet forest round about; the
harvested fields; the dishevelled, fragrant fallows; the reclining,
ruminating cattle; the little chapel of St. Vincent de Paul in the
midst, open for mass once a fortnight, for a sermon in French four
times a year,--these were not more tranquil in the face of the fact
that a schoolmaster had come to Grande Pointe to _stay_ than outwardly
appeared the peaceful-minded villagers. Yet as the tidings floated
among the people, touching and drifting on like thistle-down, they
were stirred within, and came by ones, by twos, slow-stepping,
diffidently smiling, to shake hands with the young great man. They
wiped their own before offering them--the men on their strong thighs,
the women on their aprons. Children came, whose courage would carry
them no nearer than the galerie's end or front edge, where they lurked
and hovered, or gazed through the balustrade, or leaned against a
galerie post and rubbed one brown bare foot upon another and crowded
each other's shoulders without assignable cause, or lopped down upon
the grass and gazed from a distance.

Little conversation was offered. The curiosity was as unobtrusive as
the diffidence was without fear; and when a villager's soft, low
speech was heard, it was generally in answer to inquiries necessary
for one to make who was about to assume the high office of educator.
Moreover, the schoolmaster revealed, with all gentleness, his
preference for the English tongue, and to this many could only give
ear. Only two or three times did the conversation rise to a pitch that
kindled even the ready ardor of the young man of letters. Once, after
a prolonged silence, the host, having gazed long upon his guest, said,
without preface:--

"Tough jaw