Bayou Folk

Kate Chopin

Houghton, Mifflin, 1895 - Fiction - 313 pages

One agreeable afternoon in late autumn two young men stood together on Canal Street, closing a conversation that had evidently begun within the club-house which they had just quitted. "There's big money in it, Offdean," said the elder of the two. "I would n't have you touch it if there was n't. Why, they tell me Patchly 's pulled a hundred thousand out of the concern a'ready." "That may be," replied Offdean, who had been politely attentive to the words addressed to him, but whose face bore a look indicating that he was closed to conviction. He leaned back upon the clumsy stick which he carried, and continued: "It's all true, I dare say, Fitch; but a decision of that sort would mean more to me than you'd believe if I were to tell you. The beggarly twenty-five thousand's all I have, and I want to sleep with it under my pillow a couple of months at least before I drop it into a slot." "You 'll drop it into Harding & Offdean's mill to grind out the pitiful two and a half per cent commission racket; that 's what you 'll do in the end, old fellow-see if you don't."

Contents

• A NoACCOUNT CREOLE: 1
• IN AND OUT OF OLD NATCHITOCHES: 52
• IN SABINE: 78
• A VERY FINE FIDDLE: 96
• OLD AUNT PEGGY: 111
• A RUDE AWAKENING: 126
• THE BÊNITOUS SLAVE: 147
• A TURKEY HUNT: 159
• LOVE ON THE BONDIEU: 170
• LOKA: 193
• BOULÔT AND BOULOTTE: 207
• A VISIT TO AVOYELLES: 223
• A WIZARD FROM GETTYSBURG: 230
• AT THE CADIAN BALL: 261
• LA BELLE ZORAÏDE: 280
• A GENTLEMAN OF BAYOU TÊCHE: 291
• A LADY OF BAYOU ST JOHN: 304

About the author

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 8, 1851. Although she was brought up in a wealthy and socially elite Catholic family, Chopin's childhood was marred by tragedies. Her father was killed in a train accident when Chopin was just four years old, and in the following years she also lost her older brother, great-grandmother, and half-brother. In 1870, at the age of 19, she married Oscar Chopin, the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. The couple had seven children together, five boys and two girls, before Oscar died of swamp fever in 1883. The following year, Chopin packed up her family and moved back to St. Louis to be with her mother, who died just a year later. To support herself and her family, Chopin started to write. Her first novel, At Fault, was published in 1890. Her most famous work, The Awakening, inspired by a real-life New Orleans woman who committed adultery, was published in 1899. The book explores the social and psychological consequences of a woman caught in an unhappy marriage in 19th century America, is now considered a classic of the feminist movement and caused such an uproar in the community that Chopin almost entirely gave up writing. Chopin did try her hand at a few short stories, most of which were not even published. Chopin died on August 22, 1904, of a brain hemorrhage, after collapsing at the World's Fair just two days before.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Bayou Folk
• Author: Kate Chopin
• Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin, 1895
• Original from: the University of California
• Digitized: May 5, 2009
• ISBN: 0512000980, 9780512000989
• Length: 313 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Action & Adventure; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Family Life / General; Fiction / Historical / General; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Short Stories (single author)