“Paqueta, Paqueteta, Paquete,” I called, throwing the Italian and English diminutives together to express more strongly the smallness, and, I may add, prettiness, of the little being whom I knew was listening for my voice. Paqueta sprang into the room with a shower of laughter, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and embraced them, and said that she was, indeed, very happy. Paqueta was one of those “pets” to be found in every creole family of Louisiana; and which seem to be as necessary to the completeness of the establishment, as was the fool among the nobler of our ancestors, some three centuries past. The pet is ever a slave, a little slave, sometimes full-blooded and jetty black, and sometimes so near upon white, as to puzzle the eye to find a trace of the African sun in its complexion. It is adopted from chance, or whim, and grows daily into the affections, until it becomes the most indulged, pampered, spoiled, cared-for, and idolized thing about the house. With the widest liberty, its chains hang in the air, or are made of those roses which the good people of Geneva put into Jean Jaque’s hands when they raised a monument to his Emile. Paqueta was a quateronne—a light quateronne, of exquisite features, and most fragile make; and, at the time of which I write, had eight years—eight years of happiness to her; for she knew not of her condition, knew not of any thing, save petting, from her birth to that hour. Thus it is that liberty is a breath, an airy something to be talked of, rather than enjoyed. What liberty have the poor? Are they not bound to labor, to a toil which is ceaseless, by the will of God, even to the grave! And what liberty have the rich? A change of place, and their own wills. Better it were that their own wills were bound about with clamps of iron three-fold deep. Paqueta was born upon the feast of Easter, and thence took her name—for the French call Easter-day “Paque;” and a paque it was, or a festival it was, from her birth unto her death. Her hair was long and straight, and black as night; while her eyes, ox-eyes, too, were deeply blue; as if nature, knowing her mixed race, were willing to carry out the mixture by a strange compound of opposing colors. Nothing could be more delicate and tapering than her fingers; and her tiny feet were a joy to the sight. And there she lay, rolling at my feet, and looking up archly, and laughing—for she knew what was to come next; so I put out my hand, and commenced the daily lesson, counting upon the digits.

“Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq.” I had undertaken to teach Paqueta to count five—and a mighty task it was; for she was a very little witch, and knew me better than I knew myself, and feared lest, the lesson ended, she might lose her interest to be whistled down the wind. Oh, nature, nature! thou knowest full well what thou art about; and dost put into our breasts, even in the beginning, the ways and means of winning all our desires.

“Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq.” Paqueta crooked her little fingers, and commenced; “Un, deux, quatre—non, ce n’est pas juste; un, quatre, cinq”—and then, with a fillip upon her ear, the one hundred and ninety-ninth, she sprang away, and shouted, and laughed, and crept back again, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and said that indeed she must learn, and thought that she should do so, if she could but try again. And thus we went on, from day to day, Paqueta’s little head refusing to hold more than three numerals at once, and even those three not in the right relative position. And when Paqueta became weary of her counting, and I became weary of the fillip, she would steal up behind my chair, and comb out my hair—which I then wore foolishly long, having enough of it—and fumble in my pockets for paper, and roll my locks up tightly to the skin, saying that they must curl, and that, as I was a good man, I must buy her, and she would be my nice little barber forever. Buy her! And so she knew that she was a thing of barter—a thing to be bought and sold! And what if she did know it—was she the less happy for her knowledge—and was she other than we all are, in this broad world? Who buys the maid, trained to all luxury, sighing for position! And who buys the youth, in science well instructed, ambitious of a name! The poor are bought daily, under every sum that civilization acknowledges, and the rich, when in want of other purchasers, sell themselves to their own vices. Small difference is it, whether the price be pounds, shillings, and pence, or a promise of ease, or power, or bread, or pleasures, forbidden in this life, to be accounted for in the next. So Paqueta was not so unfortunate, after all.

Paqueta loved dress above all things, and had the taste to wear it—the French part of her composition—and when, on a gala day, she appeared tricked out with ribbons, her joy ran over, and sparkled in her eyes, and lighted up her face, and babbled from her tongue, and played in her feet, so airily, that she seemed to tread upon nothing. She loved admiration, too; and no punishment could be devised, for any of her faults, so effective as the forbidding her to appear before the company which visited her mistress’ house. She took to music from nature, for she was born amid the sound of bells; and at the Opera, where she held her mistress’ handkerchief, or arranged her mistress’ train, kept time with her head, and with her hands, and with her whole body—certainly Paqueta was not unhappy. I much doubt whether she ever saw a more miserable hour than that to which I once subjected her, in an honest attempt to teach her English. She began with a right good will, for she knew that the lesson was to be a long one, and would not be got over with the counting of five; but the guttural and teeth sounds so grated upon her ear, that, like the whetting of a saw, they made her sick, and I gave up my project—the more readily, since we all know that one language is enough for anybody; and more than enough for most of us.

Next to dress, in a woman, comes religion; and since nature is ever true, and ever holds to her first types, Paqueta was religious all over. She kept the fast-days every one, eat no meat upon a Friday, and with the coming of the Sabbath, and on most week days, walked at her mistress’ side to matins. If she came away with little knowledge, she came away with much wisdom; for true wisdom is a getter of happiness, and her happiness flowed from her religion as one of its main sources. She ever wore about her neck, hanging to a narrow ribbon, a small medal of the size, if you are a lady, of your thumb nail; it was of bronze, and bore upon one side an impress of the cross, and upon the other a raised figure of the Virgin. One day I took it between my fingers, and asked her what it was; she said it was her God, and began with much earnestness to tell me how it came into her possession. She said that it had been given to her a long time before, so long before that her little memory could not run back to the precise year, and month, and day, by the good Father Joseph, who told her that if she kept it safely she should never die. Never die; pauvre petite! What could Paqueta know of death, except as a place where there was no dressing, no eating and no drinking, no counting of five, and, more than all, no petting? Yet the good father had spoken to her of death, and had told her further, that if she did but pray to her God morning and night, she would in return, receive whatever she asked.

“And did the good father tell you what to ask for, Paqueta?”

“Oui, monsieur; he said that I must ask for health, and nothing more, for every thing else I could get myself.”

A right good father, and a right sensible father was Joseph, according to my thinking; for the little Paqueta throve well under his instructions. Every morning and every night she took the medal from her neck, and placed it upon her bed and knelt before it and asked for health, and rose with the consciousness of possessing what she asked for. Her religion was a reality, and if it went not far, it at least went some way; and there was an earnestness about it which sometimes made me wish it my own. I have many neighbors, and perhaps you are slightly acquainted with others, who would show another and a better face with one half of Paqueta’s faith.

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