If ever you go to Pass Christian, you must have a fish-fry at Henderson's Point. It is the pine-thicketed, white-beached peninsula jutting out from the land, with one side caressed by the waters of the Sound and the other purred over by the blue waves of the Bay of St. Louis. Here is the beginning of the great three-mile trestle bridge to the town of Bay St. Louis, and to-night from the beach could be seen the lights of the villas glittering across the Bay like myriads of unsleeping eyes.
Here upon a firm stretch of white sand camped the merry-makers.
Soon a great fire of driftwood and pine cones tossed its flames defiantly at a radiant moon in the sky, and the fishers were casting their nets in the sea. The more daring of the girls waded bare-legged in the water, holding pine-torches, spearing flounders and peering for soft-shell crabs.
Annette had wandered farther in the shallow water than the rest.
Suddenly she stumbled against a stone, the torch dropped and spluttered at her feet. With a little helpless cry she looked at the stretch of unfamiliar beach and water to find herself all alone.
"Pardon me, mademoiselle," said a voice at her elbow; "you are in distress?"It was her fisherman, and with a scarce conscious sigh of relief, Annette put her hand into the outstretched one at her side.
"I was looking for soft shells," she explained, "and lost the crowd, and now my torch is out.""Where is the crowd?" There was some amusement in the tone, and Annette glanced up quickly, prepared to be thoroughly indignant at this fisherman who dared make fun at her; but there was such a kindly look about his mouth that she was reassured and said meekly,--"At Henderson's Point."
"You have wandered a half-mile away," he mused, "and have nothing to show for your pains but very wet skirts. If mademoiselle will permit me, I will take her to her friends, but allow me to suggest that mademoiselle will leave the water and walk on the sands.""But I am barefoot," wailed Annette, "and I am afraid of the fiddlers."Fiddler crabs, you know, aren't pleasant things to be dangling around one's bare feet, and they are more numerous than sand fleas down at Henderson's Point.
"True," assented the fisherman; "then we shall have to wade back."The fishing was over when they rounded the point and came in sight of the cheery bonfire with its Rembrandt-like group, and the air was savoury with the smell of frying fish and crabs. The fisherman was not to be tempted by appeals to stay, but smilingly disappeared down the sands, the red glare of his torch making a glowing track in the water.
"Ah, Mees Annette," whispered Natalie, between mouthfuls of a rich croaker, "you have found a beau in the water.""And the fisherman of the Pass, too," laughed her cousin Ida.
Annette tossed her head, for Philip had growled audibly.
"Do you know, Philip," cried Annette a few days after, rudely shaking him from his siesta on the gallery,-- "do you know that Ihave found my fisherman's hut?"
"Hum," was the only response.
"Yes, and it's the quaintest, most delightful spot imaginable.
Philip, do come with me and see it."
"Hum."
"Oh, Philip, you are so lazy; do come with me.""Yes, but, my dear Annette," protested Philip, "this is a warm day, and I am tired."Still, his curiosity being aroused, he went grumbling. It was not a very long drive, back from the beach across the railroad and through the pine forest to the bank of a dark, slow-flowing bayou. The fisherman's hut was small, two-roomed, whitewashed, pine-boarded, with the traditional mud chimney acting as a sort of support to one of its uneven sides. Within was a weird assortment of curios from every uncivilized part of the globe.
Also were there fishing-tackle and guns in reckless profusion.
The fisherman, in the kitchen of the mud-chimney, was sardonically waging war with a basket of little bayou crabs.
"Entrez, mademoiselle et monsieur," he said pleasantly, grabbing a vicious crab by its flippers, and smiling at its wild attempts to bite. "You see I am busy, but make yourself at home.""Well, how on earth--" began Philip.
"Sh--sh--" whispered Annette. "I was driving out in the woods this morning, and stumbled on the hut. He asked me in, but I came right over after you."The fisherman, having succeeded in getting the last crab in the kettle of boiling water, came forward smiling and began to explain the curios.
"Then you have not always lived at Pass Christian," said Philip.
"Mais non, monsieur, I am spending a summer here.""And he spends his winters, doubtless, selling fish in the French market," spitefully soliloquised Philip.
The fisherman was looking unutterable things into Annette's eyes, and, it seemed to Philip, taking an unconscionably long time explaining the use of an East Indian stiletto.
"Oh, wouldn't it be delightful!" came from Annette at last.
"What?" asked Philip.
"Why, Monsieur LeConte says he'll take six of us out in his catboat tomorrow for a fishing-trip on the Gulf.""Hum," drily.
"And I'll get Natalie and her cousins."
"Yes," still more drily.
Annette chattered on, entirely oblivious of the strainedness of the men's adieux, and still chattered as they drove through the pines.
"I did not know that you were going to take fishermen and marchands into the bosom of your social set when you came here,"growled Philip, at last.
"But, Cousin Phil, can't you see he is a gentleman? The fact that he makes no excuses or protestations is a proof.""You are a fool," was the polite response.
Still, at six o'clock next morning, there was a little crowd of seven upon the pier, laughing and chatting at the little "Virginie" dipping her bows in the water and flapping her sails in the brisk wind. Natalie's pink bonnet blushed in the early sunshine, and Natalie's mamma, comely and portly, did chaperonage duty. It was not long before the sails gave swell into the breeze and the little boat scurried to the Sound. Past the lighthouse on its gawky iron stalls, she flew, and now rounded the white sands of Cat Island.
