Amanda M. Douglas

“ You have given her a great deal of devotion, perhaps too much. There are some gifts that are not appreciated if they come too easily.”
André Valbonais felt as if his dream had been dashed to fragments like a bit of glass. He had resolved he would not go away; he would marry Renée. Yet down in his heart he knew she did not love him with the fervor of a sweetheart. But that might come when she understood how much in earnest he was, and that her guardian really wished for the marriage. Yet, much as he wished for it, he would not spoil his darling’s life by any over-persuasion. ”

“ But André blundered, as inexperience sometimes will.
“It is not only the beauty, ma’m’selle. Laure Eudeline is like a picture, but without a sou or a silver spoon for her portion. Has M. Laflamme looked at her twice? And you have a dot that would make many men covet you. Every one knows it will only grow larger in M’sieu Denys’s hands. And I dare say he would like the pleasure of handling it.”
Renée had rarely thought of her fortune. And the most exquisite, the most romantic dream of a young girl is to be loved for herself alone. André had suddenly dashed this enchanting belief to fragments. ”

“ There was strange and stirring news from France, from Spain, even from the colonies at the eastward which, having shaken off their old rulers, were still harrassed by Indian wars and the unwillingness of England to give up the places specified in the treaties.
They did not mind these disputes in the old town. Life ran on smoothly. They were like one big family; had their joys and few sorrows and took little heed for to-morrow. There was the winter pleasure and new marriages; there were young men who cast longing eyes at Renée de Longueville, who would have no real lovers. ”

“ And here was the Chouteau house, a great white mound, the dormer windows in the roof like some curious eyes. The throng thinned out. Renée and André turned up their own street.
“And did you like those newcomers very much?” he began, as if they were continuing a conversation.
“They were nice dancers—yes, elegant dancers.”
“They’re much interested in the king’s ball. Renée, if you draw a bean, who shall you choose?”
“Oh, how can I tell? The handsomest man.”
“The handsomest are not always the worthiest.”
“That sounds like a grandam. Why should one care for a night? One dances for the pleasure.” ”

“ Then she bethought herself.
“The child,” she said, awakening to the more generous flow of sympathy that love for the time had overwhelmed. “The poor little Renée! She has looked forward every hour to meeting him again, and the disappointment will be bitter. It is more like a woman’s love than a child’s, though she is innocent of the deeper strivings of maidenhood. Come, let us go to her.”
Mère Lunde had to give the young wife a warm welcome. The tears of joy filled her faded eyes.
Renée lay on the settle, sobbing. Wawataysee bent over and would have taken her hand. ”

“ Madame Gardepier and one of her nieces cut the cake when the midnight bell sounded.
“You must have a piece, Renée,” said Madame Elise Borrie, who was plump and smiling and the mother of three children. “But,” in a mischievous whisper, “they will fight to be chosen king. We shall learn who is your favorite.”
“I’ve never had any luck,” returned Renée in a tone of mock disappointment.
“And I’ve never cut the cake before! Oh, you must take a piece from me! There will be luck in it.”
Renée took the piece laughingly, spread out her handkerchief, and broke it in two or three fragments. ”

“ For there was the wide stone chimney, the great corners in the fireplace. Sometimes on a winter night they stood a pine torch in the corner, and it gave the weird, flickering light they used to love.
Across the hall would be young people dancing. But there was no more Guinolee, no more anxious, eager crowds to see who would get the beans in the cake, no strife to be queens, no anxiety to be chosen kings; that, with other old things, had passed away.
“I wonder,” Renée says, smiling absently, “if they have as good times as they used to in old St. Louis? There are so many pleasures now.” ”

“ And if its traders are not as picturesque as Indians and voyageurs and trappers in their different attire, they still seem from almost every nation.
Most of the French have gone. There is no exclusive French circle, as in New Orleans. Here and there a family is proud to trace back its ancestry and keep alive the old tongue. But the old houses have disappeared as well. Sometimes one finds one of the second decade, with its gable windows jutting out of the peaked roof, and one waits to see a brown, dried-up, wrinkled face in French coif and gay shoulder shawl peering out, but it is only a dream. ”

“ It is to those left on earth to whom they are precious,” she returned, with a little longing in her tone. She had been waiting for Renée’s marriage to take her out of his life. Why should the child have so much?
“I think they know, those blessed ones. Ah, madame, if you had been dying, instead of your husband, and leaving the little one, would you not have pleaded with the very angels that some one might be raised up to care for her? And if that had been one to whom she would be doubly dear! So the child in one sense has been like my own.”
And always her rival, Barbe Gardepier felt. ”

“ What with fatigue and hunger, nature was overpowered and they all slept. When Wawataysee awoke the darkness startled her. The moon had gone down. She stretched out her hand in half terror.
“You have had a nice sleep,” began Valbonais cheerfully. “I, too, caught a nap. It must be near morning. Do you feel that you can go on?”
“Oh, yes! And the child? How strong and courageous you are!”
He stood Renée down and she roused. “Oh, where are we?” she cried in affright.
“Here, dear.” Wawataysee took her hand. “We are going to the Indian lodge, where we shall get some breakfast. Can you walk?” ”

“ No, she must never go away. And who would he like as well as André!
And she liked him, too, in spite of her wilful manner of flouting him. She was ready enough to put him in the face of any imaginary danger. He was a fine, generous, wholesome young fellow, with a good business. And he, Denys, could wait. He was not in so great a hurry to share Renée, but he felt there was no life, no joy to a woman comparable with wifehood and motherhood. And he wanted his darling to have the best of everything. ”

“ The supper came in, and, in spite of their fears, they were hungry. The wind rose and the air was delightfully cool. Wawataysee spread the bed and the child was soon peacefully asleep. The tent pole was a tree that had been trimmed for that purpose, and the young girl leaned against it, watching the flicker of the fire without and the pine torches that had been lighted. Courageous as she had appeared, every pulse shrank and throbbed. But there was death. She would be no man’s slave. Only Renée must not be left behind. ”

“ To a little girl who had been mewed up in an old château, rather gloomy at that, and no one about but elderly servants, the transition was mysterious, quite beyond the child’s depth. But she felt the new life in every limb, in every nerve, and she was full of joy.
The streets of the old town, if not wide, were comparatively straight; those running along the river the longest, those stretching up to the fort only a few squares. Nearly every homestead had its separate lot or garden, enclosed by some sort of rude fence. Outside were the fields, cultivated largely in common ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ambition of the outside world was stirring them, the interest that varied commerce brings. There were new boats being builded for the old firm, and in one of these Renée went up the river again to her old home.
There had been no great freshet since the one that had wrought such destruction, but the swift current of spring had torn away some of the old obstructions. Noble bluffs had settled to sunken ridges, banks had slipped into the river and formed other high places full of greenery and wild bloom. Caves of rocks swept out and left high in some other place. ”

“ Just beyond was another bend in the river, and the air was so clear they could discern the windings a long distance up. Everywhere there were still some signs of the great flood. But it had not been able to destroy the frowning bluffs, though it had left caves in different places, swept some islands out of existence or added them to others. The world was a beautiful place when the elements were at rest, and it was a blessed thing to live.
Renée was growing a little graver, a little more womanly and thoughtful, but Denys wondered at the added sweetness. ”

“ How could any one help adoring so much beauty! For Renée was not envious of beauty alone.
The young wife took the hands with glad pressure, and they went in together.
“Here is a friend who remembers you,” said Denys to Marchand. “Her son died, and at that juncture I wanted a housekeeper. She fits in admirably.”
Mère Lunde trembled with delight when he shook her hand so heartily and expressed his pleasure at seeing her again, declaring that she had grown younger instead of older, which was true enough, so great a restorer is freedom from care and fear of coming want. ”

“ It is good to have something to stir up the town now and then,” Renée returned brightly.
“Yes. The trappers were growing very impatient. And I think there will be a good trade, an excellent thing for you and me,” with a grateful expression in her beautiful eyes. “Renée, I wonder if M. Denys ever realizes all that he has done for François, and good Mère Lunde nursed him through all his long illness. Men’s regard for each other has such a strong, true quality in it. And, then, M’sieu André—oh, Renée, what would we have done without him? ”

“ Renée chattered so much, asked him so many questions, and made him talk over people and places he had seen that it had given him a readiness to talk to women. Men could always find enough to say to each other, or enjoy silence over their pipes.
She seemed to grow brighter instead of showing fatigue, and her voice had musical cadences in it very sweet to hear. The touch of her hand on his arm or his shoulder in the dance did give him a peculiar sort of thrill. She was a very sweet, pretty girl. He was glad not to have her wasted on Alphonse Maurice. ”

“ What more could a man ask than a well-used life and a certain share of happiness? But they had gone back on the next rise of ground, for business had seized with its inexorable grasp on the old home where Renée had sat and dreamed beside the great chimney and Mère Lunde had nodded. ”

“ Then she laughed and he looked puzzled.
“Oh,” with an airy toss of the head, “I don’t believe Uncle Gaspard would break my heart and make me miserable if I had cared a great deal for M. Laflamme. But I do not want to marry any one. I do not want to go away. I am very happy here. Why, there isn’t a man in the world like Uncle Gaspard!”
There was a great revulsion in every pulse. The warm blood came back to André’s cheek and the strange look went out of his eyes. ”

“ She rose upright now, and stretched out her hands with a half-timid, half-joyous smile.
“Uncle Gaspard,” she said, “where are we?”
Old Antoine raised his head. The French was so pure, the voice had an old reminder of the one back of her mother.
“We are at St. Louis, child.”
“And where is the King?”
“Oh, my little girl, back in France. There is no king here. And we are not French any longer, but Spanish.”
“I am French.” She said it proudly.
“We keep our hearts and our language French. Some day there may be another overturn. I do not see as it matters much. The Spanish are pretty good to us.” ”

“ Girls were all right enough budding into womanhood, with a hundred seductive charms. Until then, the nursery and the convent.
Barbe might have found amusement and danced with the gayest, but she soon learned that her husband was jealous and could say very bitter things. So she kept to her little girl and poured out all her love on this sweet object. There were moments when she could not even bear to think that Jean Gardepier was her father. ”

“ The beautiful Indian wife who smiled at him and then turned her eyes to her husband with an exquisite tenderness; the little girl whose gladness was so true and deep that her eyes had the soft lustre of tears now and then, and smiles that went to his heart; Mère Lunde’s happy, wrinkled old face, in her best coif and kerchief; and presently, neighbors coming in with joyous greetings. For in those days they shared each other’s joys and sorrows.
The remembrance of the cruel May day vanished. Flowers were growing over the graves of the dead in the little churchyard. ”

“ Rose Boucher threw back her head and laughed, showing her pearly teeth.
“Oh,” said Renée merrily, “and last winter we had such nice times skating on the pond! Now you will not let him skate with us or help us up the mound or anything!”
The tone was so disconsolate and the face so full of mock despair that it was amusing.
“Not I, indeed! You’re not going to have the whole world, Renée de Longueville, if you have a rich uncle and have danced with all these newcomers, and had all the room looking at you in your beautiful gown and your high comb. Has it real diamonds? Dear me! ”

“ And then she fancied herself as old as Mère Lunde, sitting by the chimney corner, only Mère Lunde had married the man of her choice—it seemed now to Renée that every one must have done so—and though her two sons were dead, she had had them once; and everybody must die some time. But to die without having been very happy, that made her shudder. ”

“ He was a great lover of nature himself.
Early St. Louis was all astir. From the bustle, the sound of voices, the gesticulation, and running to and fro, it appeared as if there might be thousands of people instead of six or seven hundred. Everything looked merry, everybody was busy. There was a line of boats coming, others already at the primitive landings, Indians and trappers in picturesque attire, gay feathers and red sashes; fringes down the sides of their long leggings and the top of their moccasins. ”