e as at Sosthene's; yet the dooryard was
very populous with fowls; within the house was always heard the hard
thump, thump, of the loom, or the loud moan of the spinning-wheel; and
the children were many. The eldest was Athanase. Though but fifteen he
was already stalwart, and showed that intelligent sympathy in the
family cares that makes such offspring the mother's comfort and the
father's hope. At that age he had done but one thing to diminish that
comfort or that hope. One would have supposed an ambitious chap like
him would have spent his first earnings, as other ambitious ones did,
for a saddle; but 'Thanase Beausoleil had bought a fiddle.

He had hardly got it before he knew how to play it. Yet, to the
father's most welcome surprise, he remained just as bold a rider and
as skilful a thrower of the _arriatte_ as ever. He came into great
demand for the Saturday-night balls. When the courier with a red
kerchief on a wand came galloping round, the day before, from _ile_ to
_ile_,--for these descendants of a maritime race call their homestead
groves islands,--to tell where the ball was to be, he would assert, if
there was even a hope of it, that 'Thanase was to be the fiddler.

In this way 'Thanase and his pretty little _jarmaine_--first
cousin--Zosephine, now in her fourteenth year, grew to be well
acquainted. For at thirteen, of course, she began to move in society,
which meant to join in the contra-dance. 'Thanase did not dance with
her, or with any one. She wondered why he did not; but many other
girls had similar thoughts about themselves. He only played, his
playing growing better and better, finer and finer, every time he was
heard anew. As to the few other cavaliers, very willing were they to
have it so. The music could not be too good, and if 'Thanase was
already perceptibly a rival when hoisted up in a chair on top of a
table, fiddle and bow in hand, "twisting," to borrow their own
phrase--"twisting the ears of that little red beast and rubbing his
abdomen with a stick," it was just as well not to urge him to come
down into the lists upon the dancing-floor. But they found one night,
at length, that the music could be too good--when 'Thanase struck up
something that was not a dance, and lads and damsels crowded around
standing and listening and asking ever for more, and the ball turned
out a failure because the concert was such a success.

The memory of that night was of course still vivid next day, Sunday,