Zoe's Father [pp. 463-468]

ZOE'S FA4 THER.
CHAPTER II.
Down a low, narrow alley off Dupont
Street, there flared a dirty oil-lamp inside a dirty box whose front and sides
were of semi-transparent canvas, painted over with certain coarse letters, which
read thus:
", MADAME BABYLONIA,
"Black Fortune-teller from Bagdad, Obi and Spirit
Medium."
Madame Babylonia was in her room.
She was generally in; for her huge,
bloated, shapeless black body was an
inconvenient thing to carry out, and her
evil, hideous face attracted too much
unpleasant notice in public. Besides,
the interests of her transcendental profession were much furthered by the mystery and secrecy that seclusion gave.
The incessant blinding lightning rendered the one dim candle almost a superfluity in her apartment. By this candle at
a low table near the solitary window sat
a girl, not more than fifteen years of age,
with a beautiful though sad and worn
face. She looked as if she had been
reading, and had stopped to think or to
watch the storm outside. At the opposite end of the long, narrow room, almost in darkness, as far as the feeble
rays of the candle were concerned, there
crouched on her hams, by a ruinous old
stove, Madame Babylonia herself, the
great Negro trance-medium, obi-woman
fortune-teller, etc. As from time to time
the storm lit up the place, a curious sight
might have been seen; though the girl,
Zoe Herrick, from her place at the window, paid no attention to it, perhaps
from long familiarity with such things.
A large box, the top and one side being
of wire-netting, stood beside the stove,
in which box a dozen or so of rattlesnakes writhed over each other and hissed as the Negress stirred up the charcoal in the stove, or teased them with
a short stick, or laughed horribly as
she succeeded in throwing a bit of the
hot charcoal into the cage of a misera
ble and blasphemous parrot, set on a
kind of devil's altar against the opposite
wall, amid a perfect thicket of ugly
wooden fetiches, old bladders painted
over with hideous faces, stuffed skins
dusty and distorted, and the whole other paraphernalia of bones, herbs, and
old metal that go to set up an obiwoman and fortune-teller. At last a
prolonged and furious screaming by the
parrot of its favorite sentence, "Git up
and git, d-n yer soul," and a crackling
and smell of fire, drew Zoe's attention to
the spot where the half- drunken old
woman had been pitching live coals,
and the girl saw that some of the trumpery had taken fire. There was no alarm
or fuss; she simply took a bucket of
water, put the thing out, and returned
to her seat, looking very pale and resolute as the momently brightening lightning showed her face.
The old harridan by the stove seemed
struck by something she had seen, and
she let the snakes and the profane parrot alone for a spell, to get on her feet
with more agility than was usual with
her. She walked up to the window and
laid her flabby hand heavily on Zoe's
shoulder. "Look a-heah, gal, what fur
ye dressed an' got that bundle beside
ye?"
"Because-because, Babylonia, whenever my father comes home to - night,
I'll take him away; I'm going to leave
you."
Babylonia staggered back as if the
lightning had struck her. "Leave healh,
to-night!" Then recovering herself, she
howled out: "An' who mayyou be that's
goin' to leave afore you pays yer just
dues? Hey I kep' up you an' yer
drunken old daddy ever since the war
driv us out ov Virginny, and ain't goin'
to get nuffin' for it?"
"Get nothing for it!" said the girl,
shivering a little, and using wonderfully
lady-like language for one who had been
reared by a nurse like Babylonia Crowse
I 874.]
465