Louisiana Loco-Motive

Chapter 3

Mrs. Devereux

On a hill way back from the road stands a gargantuan, gorgeous antebellum style white house with huge white columns across the front porch. Inside are thirty-two rooms of which ten are bedrooms, seven bathrooms, two kitchens,  a breakfast room, sunroom, formal dining room, parlor and the library, which are just a few of the many rooms that occupy the space within the walls. Off to the side of the large home is a cute little garden shed around 3,200 ft. in size and on the other side is a pier that stretches out into the murky water of a lake that was once a cotton field. The back of the property is covered by lush gardens filled with bushes, shrubs, plants and flowers; while the sprawling space out front of the house is covered by low cut St. Augustine grass that sprawls from the house all the way forward up to the edge of the road. There are several weeping willow trees along with a pecan tree and numerous fruit trees. The fig trees are the highly favored ones of its owner and a makeshift swing fashioned from a large tractor tire hangs from one of the tree's branches on a thick twisted rope; but, most notably in the long driveway leading up to the house is a very well-kept 1955 Buick century. It is baby blue in color and belongs to the only surviving occupant of the estate; a lady named Mrs. Devereux. Born in 1866, she's a 109 years old and a devout Christian. She still has her family's third generation maid, a black woman named Geneva, drive her to worship at the Lord's house every Sunday morning. Her husband had been the mayor of Butterville for 55 years before he passed away in 1951 at the ripe old age of eighty-seven. They never had any children of their own and there's definitely a reason for that; so all that remains for Mrs. Devereaux is their large estate home with all its amenities, the land it sits on and her faith in the Lord. Oh, and the history. The history of Butterville. At 109 years old, she knows the history better than all of its residents combined. Especially, the history centered around the ol' locomotive. After all, what's the point of having a town historian if one doesn't know the history? All the structures that make up the scenery are absolutely gorgeous. Very serene and picturesque. But, there's also something really sinister there. It has never left the land. It's buried there. Maybe buried in the backyard, or buried in the murky water of the lake, or maybe just buried deep in the mind of its occupant; but, it exists and it's there!