Four years later he entered the
Confederate army. So youthful was his appearance, that a planter, catching
sight of him, exclaimed, "Great heavens! Abe Lincoln told the truth. We
_are_ robbing the cradle and the grave!" He served two years in the
southern army, and after the war returned penniless to his native city. His
efforts to find employment are described in his most realistic novel, _Dr.
Sevier_. He was a surveyor, a clerk to cotton merchants, and a reporter on
the New Orleans _Picayune_; but his tastes were literary, and after the
publication in 1879 of a volume of short stories, _Old Creole Days_, his
attention was turned wholly to literature.
Cable's _Old Creole Days_ is a collection of picturesque short stories of
the romantic Creoles of New Orleans. _Jean-ah-Poquelin_, the story of an
old recluse, is most artistically told. There are few incidents; Cable
merely describes the former roving life of Jean, tells how suddenly it
stopped, how he never again left the old home where he and an African mute
lived, and how Jean's younger brother mysteriously disappeared, and the
suspicion of his murder rested upon Jean's shoulders. The explanation of
these points is unfolded by hints, conjectures, and rare glimpses into the
Poquelin grounds at night, and finally by an impressive but simple
description of Jean's funeral, at which the terrible secret is completely
revealed.
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