“I saw a picture the other day of some boys shinning up cocoanut trees somewhere in the middle of January,” remarked Sparrow. “It seems funny to think there should be such differences in the same country.”
“I’d like to spend some time down South,” said Bobby. “I’ve been out West and almost everywhere else in the country except the South. Of course we had a taste of what it was like when we went to Porto Rico. But I’d like to be somewhere in the South for weeks at a time, and learn just how different things are from what they are here up North.”
“You’d enjoy it all right,” affirmed Lee. “You can fairly live outdoors all the year round, and you’d find lots of things that would be strange and interesting. I’d like to have you on my place where I could go round with you and show you the sights.”
“That would be fine,” agreed Bobby. “What town in Louisiana do you live in, Lee?”
“I don’t live in any town,” replied Lee. “The nearest town is Raneleigh, and that isn’t much more than a store and a railroad station. Mother and I live on a plantation. My folks have lived there for generations. My great-grandfather had the property in the old days when Louisiana belonged to France.”
“I guessed you were French or of French descent because of the name,” said Bobby. “Let’s see, wasn’t there a Cartier who had something to do with the discovery of America?”
“There was a Cartier who discovered parts of America in 1534,” replied Lee, “and he, I believe, was an ancestor of mine. That’s one bit of history that’s been pretty well dinned into me,” he added with a smile. “Our people, you know, put a lot of value on their ancestry, though I never cared much for it. My mother too was of French descent, as one can tell from her first name, Celeste.”
“Is the plantation a big one?” asked Bobby.
“Pretty big,” replied Lee, “though not as big as it was before the Civil War. That was in the days when people kept slaves, and our folk had a lot of them and thousands of acres of land. But after the war was over, a lot of the land was sold, and now we have only a few hundred acres. And I don’t know how long we’ll have that,” he added, a shadow coming over his brow.
“What do you mean?” asked Fred with ready sympathy.