[So the carriage rolled along the margin of Bayou Teche, with two big trunks besides Monsieur's on back and top, and a smaller one, lent by Alix, lashed underneath; but shawls, mats, and baskets were all left behind with the Carpentiers. The first stop was at the plantation and residence of Captain Patterson, who "offered his hand in the English way, saying only, 'Welcomed, young ladies.'" In 1795, the narrator stops to say, one might see in and about New Orleans some two-story houses; but along the banks of Bayou Teche, as well as on the Mississippi, they were all of one sort,—like their own; like Captain Patterson's,—a single ground floor with three rooms facing front and three back. Yet the very next stop was at a little cottage covered with roses and with its front yard full of ducks and geese,—"'A genuine German cottage,' said papa,"—where a German girl, to call her father, put a great ox's horn to her lips and blew a loud blast. Almost every one was English or German till they came to where was just beginning to be the town of Franklin. One Harlman, a German, offered to exchange all his land for the silver watch that it best suited Monsieur to travel with. The exchange was made, the acts were all signed and sealed, and—when Suzanne, twenty years after, made a visit to Attakapas there was Harlman and his numerous family still in peaceful possession of the place.... "And I greatly fear that when some day our grandchildren awaken from that apathy with which I have always reproached the Creoles, I fear, my daughter, they will have trouble to prove their titles."
But they journeyed on, Françoise ever looking out the carriage window for the flatboat, and Suzanne crying:
"Annie, my sister Annie, do you see nothing coming?" And about two miles from where Franklin was to be they came upon it, greeted with joyous laughter and cries of "Miss Souzie! O Miss Souzie!" from the women and the children, and from Mario: "I have it, Signor! I have it! My prinicipality, Miss Souzie! It is mine, Signorina Françoise!" while he danced, laughed, and brandished his arms. "He had taken up enough land," says Françoise, "for five principalities, and was already knocking the flatboat to pieces."
She mentioned meeting Jacques and Charles Picot, St. Domingan refugees, whose story of adventures she says was very wonderful, but with good artistic judgement omits them. The travelers found, of course, a charmante cordialité at the home of M. Agricole Fuselier[16], and saw a little girl of five who afterward became a great beauty—Uranie Fuselier. They passed another Indian village, where Françoise persuaded them not to stop. Its inhabitants were Chetimachas, more civilized than those of the village near Plaquemine, and their sworn enemies, living in constant fear of an attack from them. At New Iberia, a town founded by Spaniards, the voyagers saw "several houses, some drinking-shops and other buildings," and spent with "the pretty little Madame Dubuclet ... two of the pleasantest days of their lives.">[
At length, one beautiful evening in July, under a sky resplendent with stars, amid the perfume of gardens and caressed by the cool night breeze, we made our entry into the village of St. Martinville—the Little Paris, the oasis in the desert.
My father ordered Julien [the coachman] to stop at the best inn. He turned two or three corners and stopped near the bayou [Teche] just beside the bridge, before a house of the strangest aspect possible. There seemed first to have been built a rez-de-chaussée house of ordinary size, to which had been hastily added here a room, there a cabinet, a balcony, until the "White Pelican"—I seem to see it now—was like a house of cards, likely to tumble before the first breath of wind. The host's name was Morphy. He came forward, hat in hand, a pure-blooded American, but speaking French almost like a Frenchman. In the house all was comfortable and shining with cleanness. Madame Morphy took us to our room, adjoining papa's ["tou ta côté de selle de papa">[, the two looking out, across the veranda, upon the waters of the Teche.
After supper my father proposed a walk. Madame Morphy showed us, by its lights, in the distance, a theater!
"They are playing, this evening, 'The Barber of Seville.'"
We started on our walk, moving slowly, scanning the houses and listening to the strains of music that reached us from the distance. It seemed but a dream that at any moment might vanish. On our return to the inn, papa threw his letters upon the table and began to examine their addresses.
"To whom will you carry the first letter, papa?" I asked.