As the boat reached the tavern
corner, this thread of melody was easily followed to the ballroom on the
second floor of the tavern, where the Assembly balls were danced. A
slave, who had nothing but his daily bread to lose, and who would be
assured of that by the hand of charity when his master could no longer
maintain him, might take up the bow and touch the fiddle gayly in such a
time of general calamity. But there was also dancing in the ballroom.
The boat turned south and shot down a canal bordered by trunkless shade
trees, which had been one of the principal streets of Kaskaskia. At the
instant of turning, however, Father Baby could be seen as he whirled,
though his skinny head and gray capote need not have added their
evidence to the exact sound of his foot which came so distinctly across
the water. His little shop, his goods, his secret stocking-leg of
coin,--for Father Baby was his own banker,--were buried out of sight.
His crop in the common fields and provision for winter lay also under
the Mississippi.
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