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"Can ya daughter really talk to gators, Jack? Does she really sleep on a bed of water snakes?' " he mimicked, wagging his head. "And what you doin' to get her lookin' presentable for a suitor, Catherine? Huh? Lettin' her walk around here barefoot with vines and wildflowers in her hair? Keepin' baby turtles, nutria, frogs, every varmint in the swamp, as a pet."

"She's a fine-looking young lady, Jack Landry. I don't have to do anything to get her suitable., Any man who doesn't see that doesn't deserve her," Mama told him.

"Ah, you're just as highfalutin as she is. Any man who doesn't see that . . Ya got to know the garden's ready for some plantin' before you come around to put your seeds in," he said, pumping the air with his long arms. "That's what my daddy used to say."

"Swamp wisdom," Mama threw back at him. "And don't you go bringing any of those swamp rats around here to court her, neither, Jack. I want her to have a good husband, one who'll take good care of her, hear?"

"I hear, I hear. Trouble is, you don't hear. You don't hear the clock tickin'. Put your ear to her watch, too."

Lately, maybe because I was closing in on twenty, Daddy was complaining more and more about my failure to find a suitable husband. He threatened to write BRIDE AVAILABLE, ASK INSIDE on a sign and post it on our front lawn if I didn't find my own man soon. Of course, Mama told him she would rip it right out and smash it over his head if he tried to put such a sign on our lawn.

But the truth was, my mind wasn't on young men and marriage. Daddy was right. All I could think about was baby Paul and how I would get to see him again. Romance and love, marriage and husbands, seemed the stuff of movies and books, far-off like a thunderhead in the distance, bursting over someone else and not over me.

One afternoon because, my heart was so empty it had put a twilight gloom in my very soul, I poled my pirogue east on the canal and docked near the Tates' mansion. I found a deserted path to the road under a canopy of cypress trees and then crossed the highway and slipped through the forest to come around behind the house where I knew they had put up swings and a sliding pond. The Tates' nanny would bring little Paul out to play. I found a shaded spot under a large willow tree nearby and crouched down behind some branches and leaves of the vines that were woven through the fence to watch him laugh and giggle, stumble about and make discoveries, or just sit in his sandbox and push his toy cars.

Paul's nanny was a girl the Tates had imported from New Orleans. She had honey-colored hair, but a plump face and a pear-shaped figure. She waddled lazily behind the baby, her face revealing her annoyance with any extra effort Paul demanded of her. She didn't look all that much older than I was, and every time I

saw her with the baby, she always looked bored. Whenever he played in the sandbox, she would sit with an emery board and work on her fingernails for hours, as if she were carving out some great marble statue, or she would be reading one of her movie magazines and chewing gum like a milk cow chewing on a blade of grass. Sometimes she would let him cry for nearly ten minutes before she looked to see what was bothering him or what he wanted. It took all my strength to keep my lips sealed or keep myself from jumping up and running over to him. It was probably more painful to do what I was doing than not to be there at all.

But sitting undetected in the woods by the house, I could imagine myself there, beside him, maybe reading him a story or caring for his needs. Usually he played so well and so quietly by himself. I could see he was going to be a bright young man; everything attracted his curiosity. I was disappointed when his nanny realized the time and scooped him up to bring him into the house.

However, I returned the next day and the day after that, sometimes waiting for hours before she would bring him out. And when it rained, I was terribly frustrated, for I knew he wouldn't be out at all. Then one day while I was sitting in my spot watching him play, crawl, and toss the sand in his box while his nanny sat reading a magazine with her back to him, I spotted what I was positive was a cottonmouth snake slither over the grass and curl just beside the sandbox. It raised its triangular head ominously. Paul caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He studied it a moment and then laughed and started toward the snake. The nanny continued to be absorbed in her magazine.

"No!" I screamed from the woods. She spun around. "He's going right for a cottonmouth snake. Quickly!" I screamed, and pointed. For a moment it looked like she wouldn't get over the shock of seeing me pop out of the woods, but she got herself together quickly enough to reach down and scoop him up just as the snake recoiled.

She screamed, too, and the cook came charging out the back door, followed by Gladys Tate.

I was too amazed to retreat quickly enough, so when the nanny started to explain and point, Gladys focused in my direction, her face filled more with disgust about me than the snake. The cook went around the sandbox and killed the snake with a metal rake. Gladys ordered the nanny to take Paul into the house. I turned and ran through the woods, my heart pounding all the way to my pirogue. I never poled up the canal as quickly to get home.

I was afraid to tell Mama what I had done and what I had been doing. Lucky for me, she was busy with a customer for her linens, so I was able to sneak by and go into the house and up to my room. When twilight fell, Mama called.

"You all right?" she asked after I appeared on the stairway.

"Yes, Mama. Just resting."

"Well, I'm not preparing anything new for dinner. We'll eat the crawfish etoufee. Your daddy sent word he won't be home for dinner. Claims he has work to do, but I know he'll be playing cards in some garage or barn and losing a week's wages."

She was so distracted about Daddy, she didn't notice anything in my face, but we no sooner had sat down to eat when we heard an automobile pull up to the front of the house. Whoever it was started to honk his horn and wouldn't stop until we appeared in the doorway. My heart sunk. I recognized the expensive, big Cadillac.

"Who is that?" Mama wondered, and then her squint changed to wide eyes and her face filled with annoyance. "What does that woman want?"

Gladys Tate got out of her automobile and strutted toward our shack with her familiar arrogant gait. I stood a few inches behind Mama, my heart thumping so hard, I was sure Mama could feel the pounding, too. Gladys looked taller in her black cape. She had her hair down. As she drew closer, she glared up at me with her cold brown eyes shooting hateful sparks. A white line was etched above her tightened lips.

"How can I help you?" Mama asked.

"I'll tell you how you can help me. You can keep your daughter off my property and away from my baby. That's how you can help me," she replied.

"Property?" Mama turned to look at me.

"That's right. She was there today, spying on my family, hiding herself in the bushes."

"Is this true, Gabriel?" Mama asked. "You were at the Tates'?"

"Yes, Mama, but I wasn't spying on her family. I was just .

"Just what then?" Gladys demanded, her hands on her hips. She looked like a giant hawk about to pounce.

"Just watching baby Paul. I wanted to see how he plays. That's all."