As told by Pepe Boucher
Oui, oui, this be true I think me. In the Spanish days of Vincennes, there live here a most beautiful senorita whose name be Donna Mariana Gonzalez. Her father is Don Samon Gonzalez, and he be very proud; too proud to want his daughter to marry young Duffee.
Ma foi, young people who live find way to be together, and with others they went to Otter Lake, to fish, to hunt and to boat ride. Mais one day her father give orders she be going to St. Genevieve, the Spanish settlement on the west bank of the Mississippi below Kaskaskia. Donna Mariana knew her father's word to be law and that when she be in St. Genevieve she must marry a rich old ugly Don who be very rich. He be her father's old frend. Ma foi, they say he be awful old and ugly.
No one be surprised when they not see Donna Gonzalez for days, because her father had told everyone that young Dufree see her no more till she be marry. Bien, one day some French be hunt and some be fish at Otter Lake, and they see a beautiful face float on the water. Beautiful in the distance, mais when it be fish out they see it be Donna Mariana the beautiful daughter of Samon Gonzalez.
For many years no French trap or fish around Otter Lake but they hear the moan of the drowning girl or a weird wail of a song she always sang when she be at the King's Ball. She sang, dance modouieuse--ah! I not tell how lovely she sang, and how beautiful she be. Her father wanted her to be queen, mais when she lay dead he knew she love, oui love hard, to throw herself in Otter Lake to escape the old man she love not. So many say they hear her dying cry go out to meet her lover as she struggle in the waters.
Ma foi, they make your hair stand up, when they been out at Otter Lake after dark and tell you what agony came in wails across the waters, and lights like two eyes travel with moans. Then if any be brave and try to catch the lights, they flicker here, there yonger, hither thither back of him, now before him, always beyond his reach. Then they be swallowed in the water, disappearing with an awful maddening groan. Mon, mon, I hear them not, for I go not to fish where a woman be drown.
I like not de taste of da fish nor de water when my mind recollect de ole story of Donna Mariana Gonzalez.
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EMAIL: rking@indian.vinu.edu