Without taking off her hat, Mme. Daquin (Mrs. Plummer called her Mrs. Day-queen) rushed from room to room of the two-storied house. On the first floor there was a living room, “the parlour,” to the left as one entered the door, back of that the dining-room and then the kitchen. To the right were steps leading to the floor above, behind them a small room to be used instead of the more formal parlour and dining-room which apparently were opened only when company came. Above stairs were two fairly large bedrooms above the parlour and dining-room, while a small bathroom, its woodwork painted a yellowish white, and a third and smaller bedroom opened on the other side of the narrow hall.
“This big front room will be mine,” decided Mme. Daquin, half to Mrs. Plummer and Mrs. King, who had accompanied her on the tour of discovery and appraisement, and half to herself, “Jean will sleep in the next room, while Mimi gets the little room off the hall.”
“That po’ little skinny man downstairs with the funny moustache don’t seem to have much to say in this house,” whispered Mis’ King to her companion as they followed Mme. Daquin. “ ’Tain’t hard to see who wears the pants in this family.”
Like beagles they followed every word, every expression. Their scanty store of information about the newcomers would be sufficient, when amplified during their mutual discussions on the morrow, as foundation of the extensive tales they would bear to eager ears in the neighbourhood.
Downstairs Mimi sat in the parlour, wearied, but interested in sizing up her new home. She was perched in a huge chair, of brilliantly polished oak, the seat and back of plum-coloured damask. The chandelier was of intricately twisted bands of metal painted a dull gold which formed weird and awesome designs on the ceiling in the reflections from the flickering gas lights. Underneath it there sat an oak table with elaborately, fantastically carved legs, covered with a faded tapestry centrepiece. On it rested a fat family album of red plush, a diamond-shaped mirror in the centre. Near it rested an odd-shaped instrument that Mimi longed to examine but which she contemplated from afar for fear of incurring a frown from Mr. Robertson, who was advising or, rather, ordering Jean regarding the steps he must take to “get on” in his new position. The object was of dark polished wood, a long rod serving as a sort of backbone. At the end was a glass partly enclosed with a little wooden fence, on the rod below was a handle. At the other end was a slotted rack. Near this odd object rested a pile of cards. Gently raising herself by her elbows pressed against the arms of the chair, Mimi could see a brightly coloured picture of a mountain scene on the topmost card. She made a mental resolution to explore this mystery at the earliest possible time.
“… And tomorrow morning right after breakfast you’ll go with me to the office, Gene, where I’ll introduce you to Hunter—he’s the president of the Lincoln—Watkins, Jones and the rest of the crowd. They’re a live bunch—that is, live for this town but pretty small potatoes up in Chicago, and they’ve got a gold mine insuring all the coloured folks here in the South. I want you to stick to the job—no monkey business or I’m through, you hear me?—and you’ll make so much money you’ll wonder how you ever managed to stick in that dead old hole of New Orleans.”
Mr. Robertson’s words came to Mimi sharply as his voice rose. He took a fat cigar from his pocket, bit the end from it and tossed the severed bit through the open window. She disliked this bossy old man intensely. She looked at Jean, wondering that he so calmly submitted to the dictatorial attitude of the man who, though his father-in-law, was not many years his senior. But Jean heard his words only vaguely, if he heard them at all. He sat beside his wife’s father on the couch that matched the chair on which Mimi perched and gazed through the window, the thin white curtains opening and closing as a faint breeze stirred them. Somewhere outside, a voice, throaty but rich, plaintively sang of his woes and his “blues”:
“I’m jes’ as misabul as I can be,
I’m unhappy even if I am free,
I’m feelin’ down, I’m feelin’ blue;
I wander round, don’t know what to do.
I’m go’na lay mah haid on de railroad line,
Let de B. & O. come and pacify mah min’.”
The voice died away in the distance but the poignant, nostalgic longing of the unseen singer remained. Jean and Mimi, used to the Creole dilution of the Negro songs, sat straining their ears to catch every note of this barbaric, melancholy wail as it died in the distance, a strange thrill filling them. The swiftly moving tragedy of the song, dying off abruptly as though the singer was too full for further words, stirred them both to the exclusion of all else. Again a voice was heard, this time a woman’s:
“These men I love, honey,
Sho’ do make me tiahed,
These men I love, honey,
Sho’ do make me tiahed.
They got a han’fulla gimme
An’ a mouth fulla much oblige.”
A loud laugh greeted the end of her song.
“Hey dere, Babe, what’cha doin’?” called the first voice, and in response to the reply: “Nothin’ much. Come on in!” the two voices mingled in indistinct words, punctuated frequently with laughter, gay, rich and in unison.
“Gene, are you listening to what I’m telling you?” snapped Mr. Robertson, and Jean came back to realities with a start.
“Certainly! Certainly!” Jean hastened to assure him.
Mr. Robertson eyed him suspiciously and then, as the look of apparent interest on Jean’s face seemed to satisfy him, he continued his instructions. No sooner had he begun again, however, before Jean’s mind began to wander once more.
