The Mind Creative
Mamzelle Aurélie possessed a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks,
hair that was changing from brown to grey, and a determined eye.
She wore a man's hat about the farm, and an old blue army
overcoat when it was cold, and sometimes top-boots.
Mamzelle Aurélie had never thought of marrying. She had never
been in love. At the age of twenty she had received a proposal,
which she had promptly declined, and at the age of fifty she had
not yet lived to regret it.
So she was quite alone in the world, except for her dog Ponto,
and the negroes who lived in her cabins and worked her crops,
and the fowls, a few cows, a couple of mules, her gun (with which
she shot chicken-hawks), and her religion.
One morning Mamzelle Aurélie stood upon her gallery,
contemplating, with arms akimbo, a small band of very small
children who, to all intents and purposes, might have fallen from
the clouds, so unexpected and bewildering was their coming, and
so unwelcome. They were the children of her nearest neighbour,
Odile, who was not such a near neighbour, after all.
The young woman had appeared but five minutes before,
accompanied by these four children. In her arms she carried little
Élodie; she dragged Ti Nomme by an unwilling hand; while
Marcéline and Marcélette followed with irresolute steps.
Her face was red and disfigured from tears and excitement. She
had been summoned to a neighbouring parish by the dangerous
illness of her mother; her husband was away in Texas -- it seemed
to her a million miles away; and Valsin was waiting with the
mule-cart to drive her to the station.
"It's no question, Mamzelle Aurélie; you jus' got to keep those
youngsters fo' me till I come back. Dieu sait, I would n' botha you
with 'em if it was any otha way to do! Make 'em mine you,
Mamzelle Aurélie; don' spare 'em. Me, there, I'm half crazy
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