Regret by Kate Chopin

Books at bedtime by calming anxiety, regret by Kate Choping. Mamzel Orelia 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. Mamzel Orelia had never thought of marrying.

She had never been in love. At the age of 20, she had received a proposal, which she had promptly declined, and at the age of 50, she had not yet lived to regret it. So, she was quite alone in the world, except for her dog Ponto, and the workers who lived in the cappons and worked her crops, and the fowls, a few cows, a couple of mules, her gun, which she shot chicken hawks, and her religion. One morning, Mamzel Orelia stood upon her gallery, contemplating with arms a Kimbo, a small band of very small children, who, tall, intense and purposes, might have fallen from the clouds, so unexpected and buvaryldering was there coming, and so unwelcome.

They were the children of the nearest neighbour, Odeel, 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 Olody, she dragged tea to Mam by the unwilling hand. While, Messaline and Marcelle followed with irregular 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 Valsyn was waiting with the mule cart to drive her to the station. There's no question, Mamzel Orelia, for you have just got those youngsters for me to tell them I've come back.

I wouldn't be bothering you with them. If there was another way to do it, make him mine you, Mamzel Orelia. Don't spare him. Me there, I'm half crazy between the children and the are not at home.

She left them, crowded into the narrow strip of shade, on the porch of the long, low house. The white sunlight was beating in on the white old boards. Some chickens were scratching in the grass at the foot of the steps, and one had boldly mounted and was stepping heavily, solemnly and aimlessly across the gallery. There was a pletizen odour of pinks in the air, and the sound of the workers laughter was coming across the flowering cotton field.

Mamzel Orelia stood contemplating the children. She looked with a critical eye upon Masaline, who had been left staggering beneath the weight of the chubby alodea. She surveyed them with the same calculating air that mingled her silent tears with the audible grief and rebellion. During those few contemplative moments, she was collecting herself.

She was determining upon a line of action, which should be identical with a line of duty. She began by feeding them. If Mamzel Orelia's responsibilities might have begun and ended there, they could have easily have been dismissed, for her larder was amply provided against an emergency of this nature. But little children are not little pigs.

They require and demand attentions, which were wholly unexpected by Mamzel Orelia, and which she was ill prepared to give. She was indeed very inapped in her management of her deiria's children during the first few days. How could she know that Masalette always wept when spoken to in a loud and commanding tone of voice? It was a peculiarity of Masalette.

She became acquainted with T'Normi's passion for flowers only when he had plucked all the choices guardianias and pinks with the apparent purpose of critically studying their botanical construction. Tainty enough to tell, 'im, Mamzel Orelia'. Masaline instructed her, 'you've got to time to a chair.' It's what Mamma would do all the time when he's bad, sit and time in a chair.

The chair in which Malmazal Orelia tied T'Normi was roomy and comfortable, and he seized the opportunity to take an app in it, the afternoon being warm. At night, when she ordered them one and all to bed, as she would have shoved the chickens into the henhouse, they stayed uncomprahending before her. What about the little white nightgowns that they had been taken from the pillow slip in which they'd brought over and shaken by some strong hand till they snapped like whipoxes? What about the tub of water which had to be brought and set in the middle of the room, in which the tired little dusty sun-brown feet had everyone to be washed sweet and clean?

When it made, Masaline and Masalette laughed merrily. The idea that Mammazal Orelia should for a moment have believed that T'Normi could fall asleep without being told the story at bedtime, or that loady could fall asleep at all without being rocked and sun-ting. I tell you, aren't roomy, Mammazal Orelia informed her cook and confidence me? I'd rather manage a dozen plantations than those children.

Don't talk to me about children. Paint respected such as you would know anything about the Mammazal Orelia I see, plainly they are spy those little children. Them's the things you get to know in the raising and management of children. Asal Orelia certainly did not pretend or aspire to such subtle and far-reaching knowledge of the subject that aren't ruby possessed, who had raised five and bed six.

She was glad enough to learn a few little mother tricks to serve the moment's need. T'Normi, his sticky fingers compelled her to unearth white aprons that she had not worn for years, and she had to accustom herself to his moist kisses the expressions of an affectionate and exuberant nature. She got down her sewing kit, which he seldom used from the top shelf of the amoeu, and placed it within the ready and easy reach, with torn slips and buttonless wastes demanded. It took her some days to become accustomed to the laughing, the crying, the chattering, the echoed through the house and around it all day long, and it did.

And it did was it not for the first or second night that she could sleep comfortably with little aloudi's hot, plump body pressed close against her, and the little ones warm breath beating her cheek, like the fanning of a bird's wing. But at the end of two weeks, Mammazal Orelia had grown quite used to these things, and she no longer complained. It was also at the end of the two weeks that Mammazal Orelia, one evening, looking away towards the crib where the cattle were being fed, saw Valsen's blue cart turning the bend on the road. A deal sat behind the mulletone, upright and alert.

As later on here, the young woman's beaming face indicated that her homecoming was a happy one, that this coming, unannounced and unexpected, through Mammazal Orelia into a flutter that was almost agitation. The children had to be galloped. Where was Tynomi, Yonder in the shed, putting an edge of her, his knife at the grindstone, a marcelline, a marcellette, cutting and fashioning doll racks in the corner of the gallery. As for a loady, she was safe enough in Mammazal Orelia's arms, and she had screamed with delight at the sight of the familiar blue cart which was bringing her mother back home.

The excitement was all over, and they were gone. How still it was when they were gone. Mammazal Orelia stood upon the gallery, looking and listening. She could no longer see the cart.

The red sunset and the blue grey twilight had together flung a purple mist across the fields and the road that hid it from her view. She could no longer hear the wheezing and creaking of its wheels. But she could faintly hear the shrill glad voices of the children. She turned into the house.

There was much work awaiting for her. For the children had left a sad disorder behind them, but she did not once set about the task of writing in. Mammazal Orelia seated herself beside the table. She gave one slow glance through the room, into which the evening shadows were creeping and deepening around her solitary figure.

She let her head fall down upon the benaded arm and began to cry. O, but she cried. Not softly as women often do. She cried like a man, with sobs that seemed to tear her very soul.

She did not notice Ponto, licking her hand.