Louisiana Loco-Motive

Chapter 9

Up and died

The previous day had been a long one, but nevertheless Geneva was up, washed and back at Mrs. Devereux's large Antebellum style mansion ready to serve her employer for another day. She trudged up the long driveway, picking up the morning paper on her way. As she climbed the steps of the front porch of the large home, her knee high stockings began to roll down from each kneecap, as it usually did every time she ascended the steps. She reached deep into her brassiere and felt around til she found it. Grabbing a'hold of it, she used her key to let herself in. She had a set time to arrive every day and it was unacceptable to arrive earlier or later than that time. As she entered, she closed the door behind her and set about drawing the drapes and starting breakfast. Once she had Mrs. Devereux's scrambled eggs, grits and grillades, two slices of bacon, half slice of toast, half a glass of cold milk and freshly brewed
cup of strong coffee on the silver serving tray, she set off in the direction of her employers bedroom to serve her breakfast. She entered into the room and set the tray down on the nightstand. This morning was different, cause usually Mrs. Devereux was sitting up in bed, albeit still in her nightgown, but sitting up and happy to see Geneva come in with her breakfast; but, this morning she was still sound asleep. Geneva put her hand on her employers frail shoulder and ever so gently shook her softly calling out, "Mrs. Devereux, wake up ma'am, yo' breakfast is here."  She did that a couple of times with no response from Mrs. Devereux before she realized her employer wasn't going to respond. The old woman had up and died!

Geneva was instantly sad, but not shocked. Mrs. Devereux WAS a hundred and nine years old, so she was well aware her employer could succumb to the inevitable fate of Father Time's hourglass running out of sand for her at any given moment. She knew the procedure of what to do in case this should happen, so she prepared to pick up the telephone and call Doctor LeBlanc to come out to the estate and do his assessment. As the sun started to rise, Geneva opened the top drawer of her employers nightstand and peered inside for the doctors number; but, what she found instead was an old saddlebag with a neatly written note on top that had only one word: Surprise.

She stopped and thought for a moment. She thought about how the day before she'd left work, the only part of the riddle she couldn't figure out was the trunks surprise rests with the sunrise.

With much curiosity, she pulled the saddlebag out of the nightstand drawer and proceeded to the bench at the end of her employers bed. She sat down and opened it.