A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD ST. LOUIS
by
AMANDA M. DOUGLAS
Author of “A Little Girl in Old Boston,” “A Little Girl in Old Detroit,”
“A Little Girl in Old Washington,” etc.
New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
1903
Copyright, 1903.
By Dodd, Mead and Company.
Published, September, 1903.
Burr Printing House,
New York.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—RENÉE DE LONGUEVILLE
CHAPTER II—OLD ST. LOUIS
CHAPTER III—A NEW HOME
CHAPTER IV—THE SOWING OF A THORN
CHAPTER V—WITH A TOUCH OF SORROW
CHAPTER VI—BY THE FIRESIDE
CHAPTER VII—AT THE KING’S BALL
CHAPTER VIII—THE SURPRISE
CHAPTER IX—PRISONERS
CHAPTER X—IN THE WILDERNESS
CHAPTER XI—WAS EVER WELCOME SWEETER
CHAPTER XII—HER ANSWER
CHAPTER XIII—PASSING YEARS
CHAPTER XIV—AT THE BALL
CHAPTER XV—GATHERING THISTLES
CHAPTER XVI—THE RISE IN THE RIVER
CHAPTER XVII—RIVALS
CHAPTER XVIII—A FINE ADJUSTMENT
CHAPTER XIX—THIS WAY AND THAT
CHAPTER XX—WHEN A WOMAN WILL
CHAPTER XXI—FROM ACROSS THE SEA
CHAPTER XXII—A NEW ST. LOUIS
Cities that have grown from small hamlets seldom keep register of
their earlier days, except in the legends handed down in families. St.
Louis has the curious anomaly of beginning over several times. For the
earliest knowledge of how the little town looked I wish to express my
obligations for some old maps and historical points to Mr. Frederick
M. Crunden, Public Librarian, Miss Katharine I. Moody, and Colonel
David Murphy.
A. M. Douglas.
CHAPTER I
RENÉE DE LONGUEVILLE
The bell had clanged and the gates of the stockade were closed. There
were some houses on the outside; there was not so much fear of the
Indians here, for the French had the art of winning them into
friendship. Farms were cultivated, and the rich bottom lands produced
fine crops. Small as the town was twenty years before the eighteenth
century ended, it was the headquarters of a flourishing trade. The
wisdom of Pierre Laclede had laid the foundation of a grand city. The
lead mines even then were profitably worked, and supplied a large tract
of the Mississippi River east and west.
Antoine Freneau stood a few moments in the door of his log hut, down by
the old Mill Creek, listening with his hand to one ear. There were
sounds of spring all about, but he was not heeding them. Then he turned,
closed the door, which was braced on the inner side with some rough iron
bands; fastened it with the hook, and let down a chain. He was seldom
troubled with unexpected evening visitors.
The log hut was hidden at the back with trees enough to form a sort of
grove. It had two rooms. This at the front was a sort of miscellaneous
storehouse. Freneau did quite a trade with the Indians and the boatmen
going up and down the river. There was no real attempt at orderly
store-keeping. Articles were in heaps and piles. One had almost to
stumble over them.
The back room was larger. There was a stone chimney, with a great wide
fireplace, where Freneau was cooking supper. In the far corner was a bed
raised on sawed rounds of logs, with skins stretched over the framework,
on which was a sack of hay with a heap of Indian blankets, just as he
had crawled out of it in the morning. A table and three stools
manufactured by himself; a rude sort of closet, and a curious old
brass-bound chest, now almost black with age, completed the furnishing.
The puncheon floor, in common use at that time, was made with logs split
in the middle and the rounding side laid in a sort of clay plaster that
hardened and made it very durable. The top would get worn smooth
presently. The walls were hung with various trophies and arms of
different kinds. Two windows had battened shutters; one stood a little
way open, and this was on the creek side.
The supper had a savory fragrance. He had baked a loaf of bread on a
heated flat stone, spreading the dough out thin and turning it two or
three times. A dish of corn stewed with salted pork, a certain kind of
coffee compounded of roasted grains and crushed in the hollow of a
stone, gave out a fragrance, and now he was broiling some venison on the
coals.
There were sundry whispers about the old man as to smuggling. Once his
place had been searched, he standing by, looking on and jibing the men
so engaged, turning any apparent mystery inside out for them. Then he
would be gone days at a time, but his house was securely fastened.
Occasionally he had taken longer journeys, and once he had brought back
from New Orleans a beautiful young wife, who died when her baby girl was
born. The nurse had taken it to her home in Kaskaskia. Then it had been
sent to the Sisters’ School at New Orleans. She had been home all one
winter and had her share in the merry making. In the spring her father
took her to Canada, to the great disappointment of hosts of admirers. At
Quebec she was married and went to France. That was ten years ago. He
had grown queer and morose since, and turned miserly.
There was a peremptory thump at the door, and Antoine started, glancing
wildly about an instant, then went through and unfastened the stout
hook. The chain he did not remove: it was about a foot from the floor
and well calculated to trip up any unwary intruder and send him
sprawling face downward.
The night had grown dark, and a mist-like rain had set in. The trees
were beating about in the rising wind.
“Open wide to us, Antoine Freneau! See what I have brought you, if you
can make light enough.”
“Gaspard Denys—is it you? Why, I thought you were in the wilds of
Canada. And——”
He kicked aside the chain and peered over at the small figure beside
Gaspard.
Gaspard had just stood the child down, and his arms tingled with the
strain when the muscles were set loose.
“You have brought her!”
There was a sound in the voice far from welcome, almost anger.
“Yes; your messenger from New Orleans told the truth. The nurse or
companion, whatever you may call her, had instructions, if no one
claimed her, to place her in a convent.”
“And you—you interfered?” Freneau struck his clinched fist hard on a
pile of skins.
Gaspard laughed.
“What I am to do with a child is more than I can tell,” Freneau said
doggedly, almost threateningly.
“Well, you can give us something to eat. Your supper has a grand
fragrance to a hungry man. Then we can discuss the other points. A bear
taken away from his meal is always cross—eh, Antoine?”
Freneau turned swarthy; he was dark, and the red tinge added made him
look dangerous.
“I don’t understand——”
“Well, neither do I. You married your daughter to a French title when
you knew she would have been happier here with a young fellow who loved
her; and—yes, I am sure she loved me. Somewhere back, when my forebears
called themselves St. Denys, there might have been a title in the
family. In this New World we base our titles on our courage, ambitions,
successes. Then her little daughter was born, and she pined away in the
old Château de Longueville and presently died, while her husband was
paying court and compliments to the ladies at the palace of Louis XVII.
There are deep mutterings over in France. And De Longueville, with his
half dozen titles, marries one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies in waiting.
The child goes on in the old château. Two boys are born to the French
inheritance, and little mademoiselle is not worth a rush. She will be
sent to her grandfather somewhere in the province of Louisiana. But the
nurse goes to Canada to marry her lover, expatriated for some cause. You
see, I know it all. If mademoiselle had stayed in France she would have
been put in a convent.”
“The best thing! the best thing!” interrupted the old man irascibly.
“Word was sent to enter her in a convent at Quebec. Well, I have brought
her here. Give us some supper.”
He had been taking off the child’s cap and coat after they entered the
living room. A great flaming torch stood up in one corner of the
chimney, and shed a peculiar golden-red light around the room, leaving
some places in deep shadow. The old man turned his meat, took up his
cake of bread, and put them on the table. Then he went for plates and
knives.
“This is your grandfather, Renée,” Denys said, turning the child to face
him.
The girl shrank a little, and then suddenly surveyed him from his yarn
stockings and doeskin breeches up to his weather-beaten and not
especially attractive face, surmounted by a shock of grizzled hair. She
looked steadily out of large brown eyes. She was slim, with a clear-cut
face and air of dignity, a child of nine or so. Curiously enough, his
eyes fell. He turned in some confusion without a word and went on with
his preparations.
“Let us have some supper. It is not much. Even if I had expected a guest
I could not have added to it.”
“It is a feast to a hungry man. Our dinner was not over-generous.”
Gaspard took one side of his host and placed the little girl opposite
her grandfather. She evinced no surprise. She had seen a good deal of
rough living since leaving old Quebec.
Antoine broke the bread in chunks and handed it to each. The dish of
corn was passed and the venison steak divided.
“After this long tramp I would like to have something stronger than your
home-brewed coffee, though that’s not bad. Come, be a little friendly to
a returned traveller,” exclaimed the guest.
“You should have had it without the asking, Gaspard Denys, if you had
given me a moment’s time. You came down the Illinois, I suppose?”
“To St. Charles. There the boat was bound to hang up for the night. But
Pierre Joutel brought us down in his piroque after an endless amount of
talk. There was a dance at St. Charles. So it was dark when we reached
here. Lucky you are outside the stockade.”
“And you carried me,” said the child, in a clear, soft voice that had a
penetrative sound.
Antoine started. Why should he hear some pleading in the same voice
suddenly strike through the years?
Gaspard poured out a glass of wine. Then he offered the bottle to
Antoine, who shook his head.
“How long since?” asked Gaspard mockingly.
“I do not drink at night.”
“Renée, you are not eating. This corn is good, better than with the
fish. And the bread! Antoine, you could change the name of the town or
the nickname. Go into the baking business.”
Freneau shrugged his shoulders.
Scarcity of flour and bread had at one time given the town the
appellation of Pain Court. Now there were two bakeries, but many of the
settlers made excellent bread. Freneau’s bread cake was split in the
middle and buttered, at least Gaspard helped himself liberally and
spread the child’s piece with the soft, sweet, half-creamy compound.
“You must eat a little of the meat, Renée. You must grow rosy and stout
in this new home.”
The men ate heartily enough. Everything was strange to her, though for
that matter everything had been strange since leaving the old château.
The post-chaise, the day in Paris, the long journey across the ocean,
the city of Quebec with its various peoples, and the other journey
through lakes and over portages. Detroit, where they had stayed two days
and that had appeared beautiful to her; the little towns, the sail down
the Illinois River to the greater one that seemed to swallow it up.
Marie Loubet had said her rich grandfather in the new country had sent
for her, and that her father did not care for her since his sons were
born. Indeed, he scarcely gave her a thought until it occurred to him
that her American-French grandfather was well able to provide for her.
Her mother’s dot had been spent long ago. He wanted to sell the old
château and its many acres of ground, for court living was high, and the
trend of that time was extravagance.
“You had better place your daughter in a convent,” said the amiable
stepmother, who had never seen the little girl but twice. “The boys will
be all we can care for. I hope heaven will not send me any daughters.
They must either have a large dot or striking beauty. And I am sure this
girl of yours will not grow up into a beauty.”
Yet her mother had been beautiful the Count remembered. And he smiled
when he thought of the dower he had exacted from the old trader. No
doubt there was plenty of money still, and this grandchild had the best
right to it. She might like it better than convent life.
Marie’s lover had emigrated two years before, and had sent her money to
pay her passage. Why, it was almost a miraculous opening. So Renée de
Longueville was bundled off to the new country.
And now she sat here, taking furtive glances at her grandfather, who did
not want her. No one in her short life had been absolutely cross to her,
and she was quite used to the sense of not being wanted until she met
Gaspard Denys. Of the relationships of life she knew but little; yet her
childish heart had gone out with great fervor to him when he said, “I
loved your mother. I ought to have married her; then you would have been
my little girl.”
“Why did you not?” she asked gravely. Then with sweet seriousness, “I
should like to be your little girl.”
“You shall be.” He pressed her to his heart, and kissed down amid the
silken curls.
So now she did not mind her grandfather’s objection to her; she knew
with a child’s intuition he did not want her. But she could, she _did_,
belong to Uncle Gaspard, and so she was safe. A better loved child might
have been crushed by the knowledge, but she was always solacing herself
with the next thing. This time it was the first, the very first thing,
and her little heart gave a beat of joy.
Yet she was growing tired and sleepy, child fashion. The two men were
talking about the fur trade, the pelts that had come in, the Indians and
hunters that were loitering about. It had been a long day to her, and
the room was warm. The small head drooped lower with a nod.
There was a pile of dressed skins one side of the room, soft and silken,
Freneau’s own curing.
Gaspard paused suddenly, glanced at her, then rose and took her in his
arms and laid her down on them tenderly. She did not stir, only the rosy
lips parted as with a half smile.
“Yes, tell me what to do with her,” Antoine exclaimed, as if that had
been the gist of the conversation. “You see I have no one to keep house;
then I am out hunting, going up and down the river, working my farm. I
couldn’t be bothered with womankind. I can cook and keep house and wash
even. I like living alone. I could send her to New Orleans,” raising his
eyes furtively.
“You will do nothing of the kind,” said the other peremptorily. “Antoine
Freneau, you owe me this child. You know I was in love with the mother.”
“You were a mere boy,” retorted the old man disdainfully.
“I was man enough to love her then and always. I have never put any one
in her place. And the last time we walked together over yonder by the
pond, I told her I was going up north to make money for her, and that in
a year I should come back. I was twenty, she just sixteen. I can see her
now; I can hear her voice in the unformed melody of the child’s. We made
no especial promise, but we both knew. I meant to ask your consent when
I came back. Seven months afterward, on my return, I found you had
whisked her off and married her to the Count, who, after all, cared so
little for her that her child is nothing to him. I don’t know what lies
you told her, but I know she would never have given me up without some
persuasion near to force.”
The old man knew. It had been a lie. He kept out of Gaspard’s way for
the next two years, and it was well for him.
“There was no force,” he returned gruffly. “Do you not suppose a girl
can see? He was a fine fellow and loved her, and she was ready to go
with him. No one dragged her to church. Well, the priest would have had
something to say. They are not wild Indians at Quebec, and know how to
treat a woman.”
Gaspard had never forced more than this out of him. But he was sure some
trickery had won the day and duped them both.
“Well, what have you gained?” mockingly. “You might have kept your
daughter here and had grandchildren growing up about you, instead of
living like a lonely old hermit.”
“The life suits me well enough,” in a gruff tone.
“Then give me the child that should have been mine. You don’t want her.”
“What will you do with her?”
“Have a home some day and put her in it.”
“Bah! And you are off months at a time!”
“There would be some one to look after her. I shall not lead this roving
life forever. If she were less like her mother you might keep her, since
you were so won by her father. And I am not a poor man, Antoine
Freneau.”
“She is such a child.” Did Gaspard mean that some day he might want to
marry her?
“That is what I want. Oh, you don’t know——”
He paused abruptly. Antoine could never understand the longing that had
grown upon him through these weeks to possess the child, to play at
fatherhood.
“No, I shall not be likely to marry,” almost as if he had suspected what
was in Antoine’s pause, but he did not. “And I’ve envied the fathers of
children. They had something to work for, to hope for. And now I say I
want Renée because she is such a child. I wish she could stay like this
just five years; then I’d be willing to have her grow up. But I know
you, Antoine Freneau, and you won’t take half care of her; you couldn’t
love her, it isn’t in you. But you shall not crowd her out of love.”
“You talk like a fool, Gaspard Denys! But if you want the child—I am an
old man, and I tell you frankly that I don’t know what to do with her. I
would have to change my whole life.”
“And I would be glad to change mine for such a cause. You must promise
not to interfere in any way. We will have some writings drawn up and
signed before the priest.”
Antoine gave a yawn. “To-morrow, or any time you like. What are you
going to do now? It is late. If you will take a shakedown in the other
room—you see, I’m not prepared for visitors.”
“Yes; I have slept in worse places. The child has a box of clothes at
St. Charles. Hers will have to do for to-night.”
He straightened out the impromptu bed and fixed the child more
comfortably. He was tired and sleepy himself. Antoine lighted a bit of
wick drawn through a piece of tin floating in a bowl of oily grease and
took it in the storeroom, where both men soon arranged a sort of bunk.
“Good-night,” said Antoine, and shut the door.
But he did not go to bed. The fire had mostly burned out, and now the
torch dropped down and the room was full of shadows. He sat awhile on
the edge of the bed and made it creak; then he rose and opened the
shutter very softly, creeping out. Even then he listened suspiciously.
Turning, he ran swiftly down to the river’s edge, through the wet sedge
of last year’s grass. Then he gave a low whistle.
Some one answered with an oath. “We were just going away,” in a hissing
French voice. “What the devil kept you so?”
“I could not get away. There was a fellow,” and Antoine prefaced the
excuse with an oath. “He wouldn’t go; I had to fix a bunk for him.”
“Antoine Freneau, if you betray us—” in a threatening tone.
“Ah, bah! Would I kill the goose that lays golden eggs? Come, hurry.”
They unloaded some cases from the piroque and dumped them on the soft
ground.
“Now, carry them yourself. What! No barrow? You are a fool! But we must
be off up the river.”
There was considerable smuggling in spite of the watchfulness of the
authorities. Duties were levied on so many things, and some—many,
indeed—closely under government supervision.
Antoine Freneau tugged and swore. The cases of brandy were not light. He
went back and forth, every time peering in the window and listening; but
all was quiet. The cases he hid among the trees. He had drawn some tree
branches, ostensibly for firewood, and covered the cases with this brush
until he could dispose of them more securely.
Once, several years before, his house had been thoroughly ransacked in
his absence. He knew he was suspected of unlawful dealings, and he had a
dim misgiving that Gaspard had one end of the secret. He had more than
once been very overbearing.
He came in wet and tired, and, disrobing himself, crawled into bed. Fine
work, indeed, it would be to have a housekeeper and a prying child! He
laughed to think Gaspard fancied that he would be unwilling to give her
up.
Still he had hated Count de Longueville that he should have extorted so
much dowry. But then it seemed a great thing to have titled grandsons
and a daughter with the entrée of palaces, although he would never have
gone to witness her state and consequence.
Every year money had grown dearer and dearer to him, though, miser like,
he made no spread, never bragged, but pleaded poverty when he paid
church dues at Christmas and Easter.