Pamela Morsi (10 page)

Armand turned to see the flushed face of his
sister-in-law. She hurried the children back to the relative
safety of the cooking women beyond the fires.

Her husband continued to scold and curse as
he returned his concentration to the herd. Armand moved closer.

"You should not yell at Felicite, Jean
Baptiste," he said for his brother's ears alone. "The boys always
want to be near the cattle. We were just the same. Drovers must
keep an eye out for that. It was not her fault."

"She is my wife, Armand," Jean Baptiste
answered him. "Who else am I to yell at?"

It was not a reasonable answer and Armand
kept looking at him.

Jean Baptiste shrugged. "I was frightened,"
he admitted. "You know I often yell when I am alarmed."

He nodded; it was and had always been his
brother's nature to fight fear with anger. "Go easy on your wife,"
Armand suggested. "Felicite just looks so tired and so ... so
pregnant."

Jean Baptiste chuckled with agreement.
"Indeed, she looks like one of the cows. Try not to rope her by
mistake."

His brother was still laughing at his little
joke as he headed back into the herd. For Armand there was nothing
funny about any part of this situation. Jean Baptiste loved his
wife; he had always loved her. But this newfound enmity and
ridicule was unsettling.

Orva Landry's words of warning echoed in his
head. He glanced back toward the crowd by the cook fires once more.
Unerringly his gaze found Aida Gaudet. He recalled her smiling up
delightedly at Jean Baptiste. She was foolish and naive, but surely
never would she be so unwise as to become involved with a married
man.

Even if her fiancé was involved with a
married woman . . .

"Armand! Armand Sonnier!"

With a sigh and a heavy heart Armand turned
toward the speaker. He dug heels into the bay's flanks and loped
over toward the wooded area away from the herd.

"Father Denis," he said, forcing a smile.
"How are you this beautiful day?"

Armand eased the horse over to where the fat
priest stood and resisted the desire to pull his hat from his head.
Father Denis greatly disapproved of

men wearing their headgear in his presence.
When Armand was a child, the good priest had caned his palms so
frequently for that very offense that even now he could feel the
burn on the inside of his hands. Deliberately he asserted what
Acadian men thought was their right to show deference to God alone
and not to the men who merely serve Him.

"I am very well, Armand," the priest
answered.

Father Denis was robed in the traditional
garb of his order, making no concessions to the humid Louisiana
weather. He eyed Armand's hat, still upon his head, with some
displeasure, but today he said nothing.

Clasping his hands together before him, he
spouted thankfulness that resonated more pompous than prayerful. "I
am grateful, this day as every one, to our Most Righteous Father
and Blessed Mother for both the state of my health and the fairness
of the weather."

Armand gave the priest a wan smile. "That is
good to hear, Father," he said.

No one knew what unfortunate alliance or
political faux pas had sent a promising young French Jesuit into
the Louisiana wilderness twenty years ago. While most of the
prairie and backwater parishes made do with the prayers of laywomen
and annual visits by a circuit priest, Prairie l'Acadie had been
blessed with the constant presence of clergy.

And Armand was more closely tied to him than
most since as a boy he had studied both French and Latin with the
father. He was kept upon his knees for hours on end. His education
was broad and his discipline harsh. It was the priest's assumption
that his young charge was being readied for a life in the church.
Nothing could have been further from Armand's desire. The boy's
stubborn rejection of a monastic vocation and his overwhelming
interest in the secular life had proved a stinging disappointment
to his teacher. Still, the good father considered his former pupil
a useful link between him and the other parishioners.

"I've been hoping to speak with you about a
concern of great importance to you and the community," Father
Denis said. "I have made several inquiries with your friends and
family."

"Oh?" Armand feigned ignorance. A lie,
however small, came with difficulty from young Monsieur Sonnier's
lips.

The priest didn't bother to question the
younger man's pretense of ignorance. Armand dropped the reins of
his horse, knowing the well-trained bay would stand where it was
until Armand returned. With the priest at his side Armand began to
walk away from the boisterous crowd of chattering friends and
neighbors. Away from the dust and heat of cattle branding.

Father Denis gazed with near-theatrical
majesty into the heavens above them and began a deep-throated,
well-rehearsed oratory. "I have asked myself and my Heavenly
Father what work I might humbly apply myself toward in this
parish," Father Denis continued, "and I believe now at last that my
prayers have been answered."

Armand waited with expectation.

"And do you know in what direction He has led
my footsteps?" the heavily robed cleric asked him.

Armand did not know and shrugged in lieu of
reply. Fortunately Father Denis did not require an answer.

"I have been led in the direction of
enlightenment," the old priest said dramatically. "Enlightenment.
One of God's finest gifts." He sighed and turned his gaze to Armand
once more. "Not my own enlightenment, which I seek unceasingly, of
course, but the enlightenment of this parish."

Armand personally considered the parish
sufficiently enlightened already, but he kept his silence.

"I inquired meekly of my Lord," Father Denis
continued, his voice gaining conviction. "What can I do for these
most lowly people? And the answer was sent me in His Holy Writ. Do
you know the answer, my son?"

Armand shook his head mutely.

"The children. It is the children."

"The children?"

"Yes, the only way to enlighten this parish,
these people, is through the children."

Armand felt a wave of uneasiness settle upon
him. "What is your interest in the children, Father?"

"I want to teach them."

The wave of uneasiness became a churning in
his stomach. "Teach them?"

"All of them. The way that I've taught you."
He paused dramatically. "I want to begin a school."

Armand's jaw dropped in shock. There were
schools in Vermilionville and large parishes in towns, but there
were no schools among the small farmers of the prairies. There was
no need for them.

"We will build a school by the church. All
the boys in the parish will come here to learn their letters."

Armand shook his head, gathering his
thoughts. It seemed to him that the old priest was going to be
mightily disappointed.

"I'm not sure that all the families would be
interested in schooling," he said.

The old man nodded sagely and patted at
nonexistent lint on the length of his robe.

"That is why I have sought you out, Armand,"
he said. "I have talked to a few of the parents and, as you say,
there is some resistance."

Some resistance, Armand thought to himself,
was undoubtedly an understatement.

"Many cannot spare their boys for school," he
told the priest diplomatically.

Father Denis huffed in disapproval. "Well,
they certainly will learn to. We shall require that all
attend."

Armand's brow furrowed.

"Require them?"

"You are the judge, remember? You can make
laws."

It was true. Three years earlier, Father
Denis had approached him with a writ from the office of parish
governance in New Orleans. According to new laws local citizens
could serve the state on the parish level as sheriff, assessor,
ward constable, police juror, and justice of the peace.

Armand had not been particularly interested
in any job. He felt that as a farmer and cattleman, he had no need
for other vocation.

"You are an educated man," Father Denis had
told him. "It is your duty to use your knowledge for the good of
your people."

He had still been hesitant but had
agreed.

Truly it had not been so much to ask. He read
and ruled on contracts and wills, negotiated with the state
government, and represented his community on matters that
concerned them. It was better than letting some Creole sugar
planter be appointed to the position.

"You simply file a declaration and compulsory
education becomes the law," Father Denis stated proudly. "Then all
the boys will be required to attend school."

Shaking his head with alarm, Armand
disagreed. "I accepted that post to deal with traders and tax
collectors," he said. "I am no judge to tell the people what to do
with their own farms or with their own children."

"But you can," the priest told him. "You have
the legal authority to do so. And the moral right."

"But—"

"Every boy between eight and twelve years of
age will be obliged to attend during the winter months," Father
Denis said. "That will be no great hardship upon anyone and within
another generation, every man in the parish will be literate."

It was not an evil intent. Still, Armand
could not see himself requiring his friends and neighbors to
obey.

"Father Denis, I cannot tell a man how to
raise his own children," he pointed out. "I have no children. When
I do, I will make decisions for them. Until I do, a parish school
is none of my concern."

"It most certainly is," Father Denis
insisted. "As the most literate person in this parish you have an
obligation and a duty to those around you."

"I have heard this argument before, Father. I
help whoever and whenever I am needed," he said. "I do not see that
I am needed here in this."

Father Denis ignored him. "I have talked to
several of the fathers already. And I can tell you that I have been
shocked and disturbed at what I've heard. It is as if they have no
interest whatsoever in education. And they have shown no
inclination to encourage the formation of the school."

"Perhaps it is because they don't see the
need for a school."

"How can they not see the need? Do they not
want better for their sons than they have for themselves?"

"No, they do not," Armand answered. He shook
his head and sighed heavily. "Father Denis, how can you have lived
among us so long and still not know us?" he asked. "We want our
children to have the same life that we have. It is a good life. We
have our families, our traditions, our homes. We want nothing
more."

"What about prosperity?"

"Who needs prosperity when there is balance?"
Armand asked. "Two bales of cotton is not enough to sustain a
household. But four bales is too big a crop for a family to manage.
So we plant three bales. We have enough to live without making life
too much work."

"It's God's will that men should prosper,"
the priest said emphatically. "Your people ask too little of
themselves." The expression on the face of Father Denis hardened
into displeasure. "I am counting on you, Armand Sonnier, to
convince these people that this is America and 1825! In the new
world reading and writing are not the province only of priests and
aristocrats."

"Father, I am certain that we will always
have people like myself to read," Armand answered. "My nephew
Gaston has already shown such an interest. I teach him myself. As
long as some know, not all need to learn."

"One person to read contracts and write
letters is not enough," the priest told him. "Can't you see,
Armand, that only by educating these boys can we raise the
aspirations of the whole community?"

"I have spoken plainly, Father, that I do not
believe our aspirations need to be raised."

Father Denis scoffed in disgust. "You are all
petits habitants, small farmers, barely scratching out a living. A
few cows, a few pigs, and some chickens are all that keep you from
scavenging like swampmen."

"We furnish our own needs. No one goes
hungry."

"No one goes hungry!" the priest shot back
sarcastically. "While all around you the blessings of world are
being poured out in excess. There is opportunity here as never
before. The world is changing and we must change with it."

"Our world is not in great need of
change."

"How can you say that? Look at how you live.
Your shacks are built with more moss than brick. Your clothing is
made from homespun, your medicines rendered from herbs. And your
knowledge is little more than superstition."

"It does not seem so bad to me."

"Last month I read in the New Orleans paper
that there are more riches and rich men in Louisiana than in any
other state in this nation."

Armand sniffed with disdain. "Creoles and
Americaines."

"All up and down the rivers, field after
field of cane and cotton. They live in fine houses, wear beautiful
clothes, and build magnificent churches," Father Denis said. "And
they are able to do that because they have enlightenment."

"Enlightenment?" Armand's tone was dangerous.
"Enlightenment! They live in fine houses, wear beautiful clothes
and build magnificent churches, Father, not because they have
enlightenment, but because they have slaves."

The priest blanched.

Armand's words were low, his eyes flashing
with anger. "If enlightenment means the owning of another man, the
buying and selling of him like an ox or a mule, profiting from his
labor, taking his daughter to bed and seeing the fruit of one's own
seed born into a life of chains, if that is enlightenment, then may
God curse me forever to darkness."

"Slavery is naturally abhorrent—"

"But the Church does not condemn it," Armand
finished for him. "We are poor people, our ways are our own, and we
keep to ourselves. But we have our self-respect, and that is what
we want most to leave to our children. We have no need for the
world beyond and if our descendants never venture outside, so much
the better."