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A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD DETROIT
by
AMANDA M. DOUGLAS
[Illustration]
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1902,
by Dodd, Mead & Company.
First Edition Published September, 1902.
TO
MR. AND MRS. WALLACE R. LESSER
Time and space may divide and years bring changes, but remembrance is
both dawn and evening and holds in its clasp the whole day.
A. M. D., NEWARK, N. J.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A HALF STORY, 1
II. RAISING THE NEW FLAG, 16
III. ON THE RIVER, 33
IV. JEANNE'S HERO, 50
V. AN UNKNOWN QUANTITY, 65
VI. IN WHICH JEANNE BOWS HER HEAD, 82
VII. LOVERS AND LOVERS, 102
VIII. A TOUCH OF FRIENDSHIP, 121
IX. CHRISTMAS AND A CONFESSION, 139
X. BLOOM OF THE MAY, 157
XI. LOVE, LIKE THE ROSE, IS BRIERY, 176
XII. PIERRE, 194
XIII. AN UNWELCOME LOVER, 209
XIV. A HIDDEN FOE, 228
XV. A PRISONER, 243
XVI. RESCUED, 265
XVII. A PAEAN OF GLADNESS, 289
XVIII. A HEARTACHE FOR SOME ONE, 307
XIX. THE HEART OF LOVE, 327
XX. THE LAST OF OLD DETROIT, 344
A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD DETROIT.
CHAPTER I.
A HALF STORY.
When La Motte Cadillac first sailed up the Strait of Detroit he kept his
impressions for after travelers and historians, by transcribing them in
his journal. It was not only the romantic side, but the usefulness of
the position that appealed to him, commanding the trade from Canada to
the Lakes, "and a door by which we can go in and out to trade with all
our allies." The magnificent scenery charmed the intrepid explorer. The
living crystal waters of the lakes, the shores green with almost
tropical profusion, the natural orchards bending their branches with
fruit, albeit in a wild state, the bloom, the riotous, clinging vines
trailing about, the great forests dense and dark with kingly trees where
birds broke the silence with songs and chatter, and game of all kinds
found a home; the rivers, sparkling with fish and thronged with swans
and wild fowl, and blooms of a thousand kinds, made marvelous pictures.
The Indian had roamed undisturbed, and built his temporary wigwam in
some opening, and on moving away left the place again to solitude.
Beside its beauty was the prospect of its becoming a mart of commerce.
But these old discoverers had much enthusiasm, if great ignorance of
individual liberty for anyone except the chief rulers. There was a
vigorous system of repression by both the King of France and the Church
which hampered real advance. The brave men who fought Indians, who
struggled against adverse fortunes, who explored the Mississippi valley
and planted the nucleus of towns, died one after another. More than half
a century later the English, holding the substantial theory of
colonization, that a wider liberty was the true soil in which
advancement progressed, after the conquest of Canada, opened the lake
country to newcomers and abolished the restrictions the Jesuits and the
king had laid upon religion.
The old fort at Detroit, all the lake country being ceded, the French
relinquishing the magnificent territory that had cost them so much in
precious lives already, took on new life. True, the French protested,
and many of them went to the West and made new settlements. The most
primitive methods were still in vogue. Canoes and row boats were the
methods of transportation for the fur trade; there had been no printing
press in all New France; the people had followed the Indian expedients
in most matters of household supplies. For years there were abortive
plots and struggles to recover the country, affiliation with the Indians
by both parties, the Pontiac war and numerous smaller skirmishes.
And toward the end of the century began the greatest struggle for
liberty America had yet seen. After the war of the Revolution was ended
all the country south of the Lakes was ceded to the United Colonies.
But for some years England seemed disposed to hold on to Detroit,
disbelieving the colonies could ever establish a stable government. As
the French had supposed they could reconquer, so the English looked
forward to repossession. But Detroit was still largely a French town or
settlement, for thus far it had been a military post of importance.
So it might justly be called old this afternoon, as almost two centuries
had elapsed since the French had built their huts and made a point for
the fur trade, that Jeanne Angelot sat outside the palisade, leaning
against the Pani woman who for years had been a slave, from where she
did not know herself, except that she had been a child up in the fur
country. Madame De Longueil had gone back to France with her family and
left the Indian woman to shift for herself in freedom. And then had come
a new charge.
The morals of that day were not over-precise. But though the woman had
had a husband and two sons, one boy had died in childhood, the other had
been taken away by the husband who repudiated her. She was the more
ready to mother this child dropped mysteriously into her lap one day by
an Indian woman whose tongue she did not understand.
"Tell it over again," said Jeanne with an air of authority, a dainty
imperiousness.
She was leaning against one knee, the woman's heels being drawn up close
to her body, making a back to the seat of soft turf, and with her small
hand thumping the woman's brown one against the other knee.
"Mam'selle, you have heard it so many times you could tell it yourself
in the dark."
"But perhaps I could not tell it in the daylight," said the girl, with
mischievous laughter that sent musical ripples on the sunny air.
The woman looked amazed.
"Why should you be better able to do it at night?"
"O, you foolish Pani! Why, I might summon the _itabolays_--"
"Hush! hush! Do not call upon such things."
"And the _shil loups_, though they cannot talk. And the _windigoes_--"
"Mam'selle!" The Indian woman made as if she would rise in anger and
crossed herself.
"O, Pani, tell the story. Why, it was night you always say. And so I
ought to have some night-sight or knowledge. And you were feeling lonely
and miserable, and--why, how do you know it was not a _windigo_?"
"Child! child! you set one crazy! It was flesh and blood, a squaw with a
blanket about her and a great bundle in her arms. And I did not go in
the palisade that night. I had come to love Madame and the children, and
it was hard to be shoved out homeless, and with no one to care. There is
fondness in the Indian blood, Mam'selle."
The Indian's voice grew forceful and held a certain dignity. The child
patted her hand and pressed it up to her cheek with a caressing touch.
"The De Bers wanted to buy me, but Madame said no. And Touchas, the
Outawa woman, had bidden me to her wigwam. I heard the bell ring and the
gates close, and I sat down under this very oak--"
"Yes, this is _my_ tree!" interrupted the girl proudly.
"I thought it some poor soul who had lost her brave, and she came close
up to me, so close I heard the beads and shells on her leggings shake
with soft sound. But I could not understand what she said. And when I
would have risen she pushed me back with her knee and dropped something
heavy in my lap. I screamed, for I knew not what manner of evil spirit
it might be. But she pressed it down with her two hands, and the child
woke and cried, and reaching up flung its arms around my neck, while the
woman flitted swiftly away. And I tried to hush the sobbing little
thing, who almost strangled me with her soft arms."
"O Pani!" The girl sprang up and encircled her again.
"I felt bewitched. I did not know what to do, but the poor, trembling
little thing was alive, though I did not know whether you were human or
not, for there are strange shapes that come in the night, and when once
they fasten on you--"
"They never let go," Jeanne laughed gayly. "And I shall never let go of
you, Pani. If I had money I should buy you. Or if I were a man I would
get the priest to marry us."
"O Mam'selle, that is sinful! An old woman like me! And no one can be
bought to-day."
Jeanne gave her another hug. "And you sat here and held me--" forwarding
the story.
"I did not dare stir. It grew darker and all the air was sweet with
falling dews and the river fragrance, and the leaves rustled together,
the stars came out for there was no moon to check them. On the Beaufeit
farm they were having a dance. Susanne Beaufeit had been married that
noon in St. Anne. The sound of the fiddles came down like strange voices
from out the woods and I was that frightened--"
"Poor Pani!" caressing the hand tenderly.
"Then you stopped sobbing but you had tight hold of my neck. Suddenly I
gathered you up and ran with all my might to Touchas' hut. The curtain
was up and the fire was burning, and I had grown stiff with cold and
just stumbled on the floor, laying you down. Touchas was so amazed.
"'Whose child is that?' she said. 'Why, your eyes are like moons. Have
you seen some evil thing?'"
"And you thought me an evil thing, Pani!" said the child reproachfully.
"One never can tell. There are strange things," and the woman shook her
head. "And Touchas was so queer she would not touch you at first. I
unrolled the torn piece of blanket and there you were, a pretty little
child with rings of shining black hair, and fair like French babies, but
not white like the English. And there was no sign of Indian about you.
But you slept and slept. Then we undressed you. There was a name pinned
to your clothes, and a locket and chain about your neck and a tiny ring
on one finger. And on your thigh were two letters, 'J. A.,' which meant
Jeanne Angelot, Father Rameau said. And oh, Mam'selle, _petite fille_,
you slept in my arms all night and in the morning you were as hungry as
some wild thing. At first you cried a little for _maman_ and then you
laughed with the children. For Touchas' boys were not grown-up men then,
and White Fawn had not met her brave who took her up to St. Ignace."
"I might have dropped from the clouds," said the child mirthfully. "The
Great Manitou could have sent me to you."
"But you talked French. Up in the above they will speak in Latin as the
good fathers do. That is why they use it in their prayers."
Jeanne nodded with a curl of disbelief in her red-rose mouth.
"So then Touchas and I took you to Father Rameau and I told him the
story. He has the clothes and the paper and the locket, which has two
faces in it--we all thought they were your parents. The letters on it
are all mixed up and no one can seem to make them out. And the ring. He
thought some one would come to inquire. A party went out scouting, but
they could find no trace of any encampment or any skirmish where there
was likely to be some one killed, and they never found any trace. The
English Commandant was here then and Madame was interested in you.
Madame Bellestre would have you baptized in the old church to make sure,
and because you were French she bade me bring you there and care for
you. But she had to die and M. Bellestre had large interests in that
wonderful Southern town, New Orleans, where it is said oranges and figs
and strange things grow all the year round. Mademoiselle Bellestre was
jealous, too, she did not like her father to make much of you. So he
gave me the little house where we have lived ever since and twice he has
sent by some traders to inquire about you, and it is he who sees that we
want for nothing. Only you know the good priest advises that you should
go in a retreat and become a sister."
"But I never shall, never!" with emphasis, as she suddenly sprang up.
"To be praying all day in some dark little hole and sleep on a hard bed
and count beads, and wear that ugly black gown! No, I told Father Rameau
if anyone shut me up I should shout and cry and howl like a panther! And
I would bang my head against the stones until it split open and let out
my life."
"O Jeanne! Jeanne!" cried the horror-stricken woman. "That is wicked,
and the good God hears you."
The girl's cheeks were scarlet and her eyes flashed like points of
flame. They were not black, but of the darkest blue, with strange,
steely lights in them that flashed and sparkled when she was roused in
temper, which was often.
"I think I will be English, or else like these new colonists that are
taking possession of everything. I like their religion. You don't have
to go in a convent and pray continually and be shut out of all beautiful
things!"
"You are very naughty, Mam'selle. These English have spoiled so many
people. There is but one God. And the good French fathers know what is
right."
"We did well enough before the French people came, Pani," said a soft,
rather guttural voice from the handsome half-breed stretched out lazily
on the other side of the tree where the western sunshine could fall on
him.
"You were not here," replied the woman, shortly. "And the French have
been good to me. Their religion saves you from torment and teaches you
to be brave. And it takes women to the happy grounds beyond the sky."
"Ah, they learned much of their bravery from the Indian, who can suffer
tortures without a groan or a line of pain in the face. Is there any
better God than the great Manitou? Does he not speak in the thunder, in
the roar of the mighty cataract, and is not his voice soft when he
chants in the summer night wind? He gives a brave victory over his
enemies, he makes the corn grow and fills the woods with game, the lakes
with fish. He is good enough God for me."
"Why then did he let the French take your lands?"
The man rose up on his elbow.
"Because we were cowards!" he cried fiercely. "Because the priests made
us weak with their religion, made women of us, called us to their
mumbling prayers instead of fighting our enemies! They and the English
gave us their fire water to drink and stole away our senses! And now
they are both going to be driven out by these pigs of Americans. It
serves them right."
"And what will _you_ do, Monsieur Marsac?" asked Pani with innocent
irony.
"Oh, I do not care for their grounds nor their fights. I shall go up
north again for furs, and now the way is open for a wider trade and a
man can make more money. I take thrift from my French father, you see.
But some day my people will rise again, and this time it will not be a
Pontiac war. We have some great chiefs left. We will not be crowded out
of everything. You will see."
Then he sprang up lithe and graceful. He was of medium size but so well
proportioned that he might have been modeled from the old Greeks. His
hair was black and straight but had a certain softness, and his skin was
like fine bronze, while his features were clearly cut. Now and then some
man of good birth had married an Indian woman by the rites of the
Church, and this Hugh de Marsac had done. But of all their children only
one remained, and now the elder De Marsac had a lucrative post at
Michilimackinac, while his son went to and fro on business. Outside of
the post in the country sections the mixed marriages were quite common,
and the French made very good husbands.
"Mam'selle Jeanne," he said with a low bow, "I admire your courage and
taste. What one can see to adore in those stuffy old fathers puzzles me!
As for praying in a cell, the whole wide heavens and earth that God has
made lifts up one's soul to finer thoughts than mumbling over beads or
worshiping a Christ on the cross. And you will be much too handsome, my
brier rose, to shut yourself up in any Recollet house. There will be
lovers suing for your pretty hand and your rosy lips."
Jeanne hid her face on Pani's shoulder. The admiring look did not suit
her just now though in a certain fashion this young fellow had been her
playmate and devoted attendant.
"Let us go back home," she exclaimed suddenly.
"Why hurry, Mam'selle? Let us go down to King's wharf and see the boats
come in."
Her eyes lighted eagerly. She gave a hop on one foot and held out her
hand to the woman, who rose slowly, then put the long, lean arm about
the child's neck, who smiled up with a face of bloom to the wrinkled and
withered one above her.
Louis Marsac frowned a little. What ailed the child to-day? She was
generally ready enough to demand his attentions.
"Mam'selle, you brought your story to an abrupt termination. I thought
you liked the accessories. The procession that marched up the aisle of
St. Anne's, the shower of kisses bestowed upon you after possible evil
had been exorcised by holy water; the being taken home in Madame
Bellestre's carriage--"
"If I wanted to hear it Pani could tell me. Walk behind, Louis, the path
is narrow."
"I will go ahead and clear the way," he returned with dignified sarcasm,
suiting his pace to the action.
"That is hardly polite, Monsieur."
"Why yes. If there was any danger, I would be here to face it. I am the
advance guard."
"There never is any danger. And Pani is tall and strong. I am not
afraid."
"Perhaps you would rather I would not go? Though I believe you accepted
my invitation heartily."
Just then two half drunken men lurched into the path. Drunkenness was
one of the vices of that early civilization. Marsac pushed them aside
with such force that the nearer one toppling against the other, both
went over.
"Thank you, Monsieur; it was good to have you."
Jeanne stretched herself up to her tallest and Marsac suddenly realized
how she had grown, and that she was prettier than a year ago with some
charm quite indescribable. If she were only a few years, older--
"A man is sometimes useful," he returned dryly, glancing at her with a
half laugh.
After the English had possession of Detroit, partly from the spirit of
the times, the push of the newcomers, and the many restrictions that
were abolished, the Detroit river took on an aspect of business that
amazed the inhabitants. Sailing vessels came up the river, merchantmen
loaded with cargoes instead of the string of canoes. And here was one at
the old King's wharf with busy hands, whites and Indians, running to and
fro with bales and boxes, presenting a scene of activity not often
witnessed. Others had come down to see it as well. Marsac found a little
rise of ground occupied by some boys that he soon dispossessed and put
the woman and child in their places, despite black looks and mutterings.
What a beautiful sight it all was, Jeanne thought. Up the Strait, as the
river was often called, to the crystal clear lake of St. Clair and the
opposite shore of Canada, with clumps of dense woods that seemed
guarding the place, and irregular openings that gave vistas of the far
away prospect. What was all that great outside world like? After St.
Clair river, Lake Huron and Michilimackinac? There were a great mission
station and some nuns, and a large store place for the fur trade. And
then--Hudson Bay somewhere clear to the end of the world, she thought.
The men uttered a sort of caroling melody with their work. There were
some strange faces she had never seen before, swarthy people with great
gold hoops in their ears.
"Are they Americans?" she asked, her idea of Americans being that they
were a sort of conglomerate.
"No--Spaniards, Portuguese, from the other side of the world. There are
many strange peoples."
Louis Marsac's knowledge was extremely limited, as education had not
made much of an advance among ordinary people. But he was glad he knew
this when he saw the look of awe that for an instant touched the rosy
face.
There were some English uniforms on the scene. For though the boundaries
had been determined the English Commandant made various excuses, and
demanded every point of confirmation. There had been an acrimonious
debate on conditions and much vexatious delay, as if he was individually
loath to surrender his authority. In fact the English, as the French had
before them, cherished dreams of recovering the territory, which would
be in all time to come an important center of trade. No one had dreamed
of railroads then.
The sun began to drop down behind the high hills with their
timber-crowned tops. Pani turned.
"We must go home," she said, and Jeanne made no objections. She was a
little tired and confused with a strange sensation, as if she had
suddenly grown, and the bounds were too small.
Marsac made way for them, up the narrow, wretched street to the gateway.
The streets were all narrow with no pretense at order. In some places
were lanes where carriages could not pass each other. St. Louis street
was better but irregularly built, with frame and hewn log houses. There
was the old block house at either end, and the great, high palisades,
and the citadel, which served for barracks' stores, and housed some of
the troops. Here they passed St. Anne's street with its old church and
the military garden at the upper end; houses of one and two stories with
peaked thatched roofs, and a few of more imposing aspect. On the west of
the citadel near St. Joseph's street they paused before a small cottage
with a little garden at the side, which was Pani's delight. There were
only two rooms, but it was quite fine with some of the Bellestre
furnishings. At one end a big fireplace and a seat each side of it.
Opposite, the sleeping chamber with one narrow bed and a high one,
covered with Indian blankets. Beds and pillows of pine and fir needles
were renewed often enough to keep the place curiously fragrant.
"I will bid you good evening," exclaimed Marsac with a dignified bow.
"Mam'selle, I hope you are not tired out. You look--"
A saucy smile went over her face. "Do I look very strange?" pertly. "And
I am not tired, but half starved. Good night, Monsieur."
"Pani will soon remedy that."
The bell was clanging out its six strokes. That was the old signal for
the Indians and whoever lived outside the palisades to retire.
He bowed again and walked up to the Fort and the Parade.
"Angelot," he said to himself, knitting his brow. "Where have I heard
the name away from Detroit? She will be a pretty girl and I must keep an
eye on her."