A Little Girl in Old St. Louis

Presently they went out for their walk. Already Denys had explained to Mère Lunde the prices of some of the ordinary articles, and where the powder and shot were kept, so that she might provide for a casual customer. But being a little out of the way, trade was not likely to be very brisk.

They went up the Rue de la Place and out at the side of the fort. There were no houses save here and there a few wigwams, and Indian children playing about in the front of them. Cultivated fields stretched out. The King’s Highway marked the western limit of the municipality; all the rest was the King’s domain, to be granted to future settlers. There was the wide prairie, and to the northward the great mound. They mounted this, and then they could see up the winding of the river to the chain of rocks, and the Missouri on its way to join the greater stream and be merged in it. Farther still, vague woodlands, until all was lost in dim outlines and seemed resting against the sky.

Gaspard Denys liked this far view. Sometimes he had thought of coming out here and losing himself in the wilds, turning hunter like Blanchette Chasseur, as a famous hunting friend of Pierre Laclede’s was called. North of the Missouri he had built a log cabin for himself, where any hunter or traveller was welcome to share his hospitality. Denys himself had partaken of it.

Now he wondered a little if he had been wise to choose the child instead, and give up his freedom. Blanchette had also established a post at Les Pettites Côtes, which was the headquarters for many rovers, and became the nucleus of another city. He was fond of adventures.

But if he, Denys, had married, as he had once dreamed! Then he would have given up the wild life long ago. Then there would have been home and love.

“O Uncle Gaspard,” Renée cried, “you squeeze my hand so tight. And you walk so fast.”

He paused suddenly and gazed down in the flushed face, the eyes humid under their curling lashes.

“My little dear!” and his heart smote him. “Let us sit down here in the shade of this clump of trees and rest. You see, I never had a little girl before, and forgot that she could not stride with my long legs.”

“And I am so thirsty.”

He glanced about. “We are only going a little farther,” he said, “and then we shall find a splendid spring and something to eat. Are you very tired?”

She drew a long breath and held up her little red hand.

“Poor hand!” he said tenderly, pressing it to his lips. “Poor little hand!”

She leaned her head down on his shoulder.

“You wouldn’t like to have me go away?” she murmured plaintively.

“Go away?” in surprise. “What put such an idea in your head?”

“You wouldn’t send me?”

Strange these thoughts should find entrance in her mind when he had just asked himself that curious question so akin to it.

“What do you mean, little one?”

“If – if you married – some one – who did not want me,” in so desolate a tone that it gave him a pang.

“But I am not going to marry any one.”

“Are you very, very sure?” with an indrawn breath.

He took her face between his hands suddenly and turned it upward. It was scarlet and tears beaded the long lashes.

“Come,” he said in soft persuasion, “what is behind all this? Who has been talking to you? If it is Mère Lunde – ”

“No – she said it was not true.”

“Surely that little Pichou girl is not a mischief maker! If so, she must keep clear of us. I will not have you tormented.”

Then Renée began to cry softly and the truth came out with sobs.

He smiled, and yet he was deeply touched. The little thing was jealous. Yet was it not true that he was all she had in the world to love, and that no one had really loved her until he came into her life? How she had trusted him back there in Quebec after the first few hours!

Now he gathered her up in his arms as if she been a baby, and kissed the small hot face, tasting the salt tears.

“Little one,” he began in a tender, comforting tone, “set your heart at rest. If the good God spares us, there will be many pleasant years together, I hope. I am not going to marry any one, and Ma’m’selle Barbe has a fine young admirer. She doesn’t want an old fellow like me. You can’t understand now, but when you are older I will tell you the whole story. I loved your mother and your grandfather took her away, married her to some one else. That is why you are so dear to me.”

“Oh!” she cried, with a depth of feeling that surprised him. “Oh!” Then she dropped down on her knees and put her arms about his neck, and he could feel her heart beat against his breast. He was immeasurably impressed. Could she understand what that meant?

When he raised her face it was sweet and grave as that of an older person might have been. Then she said softly. “I shall love you my whole life long. I shall never love any one so dearly.”

How did she who had never had any one to love understand affection so well? Perhaps because it is natural to the sex to own something it can adore, and yet the little Renaud girls liked him very much, but there was no such absorption in their regard. Ah, he was her all. They had the natural ties of childhood on which to lavish their love. Barbe – he had never thought of marrying her, though he had seen her grow up to womanhood, and very charming at that. She was for some younger mate, and there were plenty of them. Pretty girls, nor scarcely any girls, went begging in the new countries. They were tempting enough without much dot.

And that her little heart should be torn by jealousy! He could have smiled, only it seemed pitiful. He pressed her closer, sorry any innuendoes should have been made before her.

“Come, dear,” he began tenderly, “we have not finished our walk. Or will I have to carry you?”

She sprang up lightly, her face all abloom, though her long lashes still glistened.

“Oh, no, no,” smilingly. “But you have carried me – over part of the long portage when I was so tired, and that night when it was dark. Oh, how big and strong you are. There was some one in a book in the old château – I have nearly forgotten, who was strong and brave. Uncle Gaspard, why haven’t you any books? The little ones at the Father’s are so queer, with their short sentences, and the children blunder so. I like best to know about some person. Oh, can’t we all tell that the dog barks and the kitten mews, the cock crows, without reading it in a primer! And – I would like to have a prayer book of my very own.”

“I think I have one somewhere about. But I will send to New Orleans for some books the next time the boats go down. People have not had much time for learning thus far.”

“And I had nothing to do in the old château but play and read. There was no one to play with,” sadly. “How funny that little girl was who brought me the kitten! Five brothers! Well, I have two at home, in Paris, I mean, but I never saw them only once. Rosalie! Isn’t it a pretty name? I wonder if you would like me to be called anything else?”

“No, dear. You are a queen, my little queen. I don’t want you changed in any way. I only want you to be happy and content.”

She was so thoroughly rested now that although she gave little skips occasionally and held his hand tightly, her heart seemed as light as the birds flying overhead. And now they were coming to a small Indian settlement, with a few wigwams, and long stretches of corn up high enough to make a beautiful waving green sea as the wind moved it in undulating billows. Women were cooking out of doors on little stone fireplaces. Children played about; two small papooses hung up to a tree branch were rocking to and fro. In the sun lay two braves asleep, too lazy to hunt or fish. Yet it was a pretty picture.

The tepees were in a semi-circular form. Denys passed the first one. At the second a woman sat beside the flap doing some beautiful bead and feather work. She raised her eyes and then sprang up with a glad smile, holding her work in a sort of apron.

“It is M’sieu Denys,” in broken French, that sounded soft for an Indian voice. “He has come back. He has taken a long journey to the Far East.” She glanced curiously at the stranger.

“And brought home a little girl,” smiling at the child. “She has come from the land of the great Onontio, and I am to care for her. I am not going to rove about any more, but trade with the residents and send goods up and down the river. And I shall want many articles of you, Mattawissa.”

She smiled and nodded. “I make not much for trade, but sometimes the hunters buy for their sweethearts as they return. And will you trade beads and silks? The threads we make are so troublesome to dye, and sometimes the color is rough, not pretty,” with a shrug. “I have heard it comes up from the great city down below.”

“New Orleans. Yes. But I brought it with me from Canada. They use it in the convents, where they do fine work. And the Spanish often take it home to show, and ornament their houses for the strangeness of it, and moccasins and bands, and the pretty things for real service. No one makes them quite as well as you.”

“Will not the child sit down?” She brought a bag stuffed with grass, much like the more modern hassock. Renée thanked her, and seated herself.

Mattawissa was proud of her French, and lame as it was, brought it out on every occasion when talking to the white people. Denys had a smattering of several Indian tongues, which most of the fur hunters and traders soon acquired.

Some of the little children of the forest crept up cautiously. Men they were used to seeing; white women rarely, as those at a distance seldom went into the settlements in their early youth. They were not strange to Renée, and she smiled a little, but they retained their natural gravity and evinced no disposition to make friends.

Then Renée’s attention was directed to the articles Mattawissa brought out. Beautiful strips of wampum, collars ornamented with bits of shells hanging by threads that made a soft, rhythmic sound as they were handled about, bits of deerskin that were like velvet, on which she had traced out delicate fancies that were really fascinating. Denys grew enthusiastic over them, and begged them all.

“This is for Talequah, the daughter of the Sioux who marries the son of a chief before the moon of roses ends. I cannot part with that. But I want beads, and if I could come in and choose?” inquiringly.