Читать книгу Early Candlelight - Maud Hart Lovelace - Страница 14

SHE was unaware, of course, of what the day held, but she was up when reveille sounded faintly from the fort. She dragged off the buffalo robe under which her brothers slept, snuggled into straw at the other end of the loft, and inserted brown, inexorable toes beneath the ribs of George Washington DuGay. “Up with you, darlin’.”

She swung down the ladder and washed, and attended to Andy. She swept out the single room, pausing in the doorway to lean on her homemade hickory broom and survey the rising sun. It was only a red blur in a moist gray sky, and conveyed less hint of warmth than the thread of smoke which spiraled from the Agency chimney. Since her mother was already busy at the loom, she made the morning coffee, of burned crusts boiled in water. Then the boys piled down and the family assembled for breakfast, a babble of voices filling the cabin to its eaves. They were all there save Narcisse and Amable and Hypolite, who had left for their winter posts.

When the wooden bowls were cleaned and put away, Deedee and the boys burst out the cabin door.

The sun was higher now, but the morning was still raw. Indian summer had ended. The slow procession of days, mellow, acridly fragrant, warmed by a sunshine which clung like golden smoke, had come to a close. The pageantry of brightly colored trees along the river valleys had disappeared like a parade abruptly turning a corner. Only the burr oaks still flaunted some battered autumn leaves. The rivers were mushy, morning and evening, although they thawed at midday. Chipmunks had vanished underground. Muskrats came out to sit on the tops of their houses. Ducks and geese made patterns of wild black beauty in the sky, and the gentlemen of the garrison with their neighbor, Jasper Page, were out at dawn on the Pike’s Island pass, waiting with their guns upon their knees.

Winter was at hand, but this did not matter to the children. Children with a new day to spend! They raced to old Jacques’ shanty, trundling Andy in his cart. Deedee had once trafficked for an Indian cradle, thinking that it would be simpler for her to carry her babies on her back as the Sioux squaws did; but her mother had objected with an incomprehensible vehemence, and the little two-wheeled cart had been contrived.

Old Jacques, like Denis DuGay, was a former river man. He had come from the same village in Quebec. The two old men were the greatest possible cronies, and were already smoking their morning pipes in company. Unlike Denis, who was tall and thin and always twinkling with fun, Jacques was short and chubby, with a gentle melancholy on his smooth childish face. He lived with Indian Annie, and their cohabitation had provided the DuGays with a gratifying number of playmates. They gathered these up now—Philippe was prancing about with a new bow and arrow—and after a brief conference, galloped off to the Indian Council House.

This was a favorite resort with the children. A large structure of log and stone, with a piazza across the front, it stood with the Agent’s cottage and the armorer’s shop between the DuGay cabin and the fort. It held a big American flag which the children liked to look at, and British flags, gorgets and medals which the Indians had reluctantly surrendered. Gifts from the Indians were displayed upon the walls. Major Taliaferro had a kindly tact. This was further evidenced by the absence of quills and inkstand. He did not flaunt their ignorance of penmanship in the faces of his Sioux.

The Major was an Indian Agent remarkable in the land. It was his unique ambition to do justice to his Indians. Frustrated at every turn by his government and by dishonest traders, he was usually to be found at the bursting point of indignation. He was a courtly Virginian, and his brother officers found him a bit pompous. To the outlaw traders, of course, he was anathema. He had his friends, however. Legions of humble Chippewa and Sioux, as Ojibway and Dakota had been called since the first Frenchmen came; Jasper Page; the commandant; and all the children of the settlement.

Major Taliaferro was friendly to small visitors. So was his interpreter, a genial mixed-blood, who always sat at the Agency door, smoking his long clay pipe. And there were often Indians about, some of whom would make bows and arrows for admiring little boys, and give muk kins of maple sugar to round-eyed little girls.

Deedee liked best to encounter Little Crow and hear about his trip to Washington City. She never tired of hearing that. Erect and rapt, she would listen to the tale: of the fire horse which ran like lightning along the ground, of the tunnels through which it plunged (the Indians had started their death song when it entered the first one), of the cities they had visited, of the crowds which had gathered everywhere to look at them. Little Crow would indicate the Major. “I was frightened,” he would confess, “but I took my father here by the coat tails, and did not let go until we had arrived safely at home again.”

And old Black Dog, who had not been taken by Major Taliaferro on this momentous journey, would shake his head and murmur, “All travelers are liars.”

There were no Indians about to-day. The last village was leaving that morning for the winter hunt, and Major Taliaferro, with a party from the fort, was riding down to Black Dog’s to watch the uproarious departure. The slaves were going with the party. That was an added disappointment. The black folk belonging to Major Taliaferro were as fascinating to the children as they were to the Indians, who called them black Frenchmen and put their hands with grunts of amusement on the woolly heads. The children lingered to watch the cavalcade depart—their friend the Major, the red-faced jovial Major Boles, Captain Frenshaw, and the doctor. Then they scampered in the direction of the fort.

At their coming the lolling sentry straightened. The children yielded a pleasing admiration to his white pantaloons, his brass-buttoned blue coatee, his high black beaver with its pompon of white cock feathers and patent leather strap beneath his chin. He graciously permitted a peep through the big gate. The flag waved serenely before the commandant’s quarters; the General Fatigue was sweeping the parade ground; and half a dozen soldiers under an indifferent corporal were marching toward the woodpile.

Among these the children discovered Fronchet. Dear fat Fronchet! He was a Frenchman, but he pretended that he could not understand the French spoken by the Canadians. He was from Paris, and he spoke French, he said, of the most pure. Sometimes, however, he relented for the pleasure of telling his stories. He had fought under a soldier who had made himself an emperor. The children loved to hear of him—of how he had been taken by his enemies and imprisoned on an island, of how he had escaped and had been imprisoned again. It was Fronchet’s eloquence in the hospitable DuGay doorway which had given Nappie his name.

When Fronchet talked, Deedee would turn her back on the prairies and look with brown eyes, velvet for the moment, toward the east where the two rivers met.

“It’s over there that the Little Crow went on the fire horse to see the Great White Father, isn’t it, Fronchet?”

“Yes, I’ve been to your Washington City. It’s a dull enough town.”

“And Paris is over there also?”

“Yes. A long way. Across the Atlantic Ocean.”

“And that Atlantic Ocean, is it greater than Lake Calhoun?”

“Grand dieu! Lake Calhoun! One can look across that miserable pond. Seven weeks were necessary on a fine sailing vessel for me to cross the Atlantic.”

“Grand dieu!” Deedee would echo.

“Study your lessons well, and some day you shall go,” Fronchet would promise. He could never remember that these children had no lessons to study. When Deedee reminded him he would retort, “Eh bien! At least you can learn to speak the French not like a savage. I myself will teach you. Perhaps you do not know that the ladies of the garrison study the French with me? Yes, with Désiré Fronchet, every Tuesday and Friday at early candlelight. Even Mme. Snelling, before the colonel passed away, poor soul, she spoke very nicely with that M. le Comte de Beltrami, who was here to find the sources of the Mississippi.”

So Deedee listened to the way Fronchet talked, and she modeled her slipshod Canadian French to his suave Parisian accents. But this morning he was in no mood for stories or lessons. Wood chopping made him cross. Wood chopping for a hero who had hobbled upon freezing feet from Moscow!

“Then we’ll play Indian,” Deedee announced. “I’m the Little Crow. I choose Julie.”

“Me, I am the Hole-in-the-Day. I choose Lafe,” shouted Philippe.

They divided themselves as Sioux and Chippewa, and began at once to look about for weapons. The children were well aware of the feud between these tribes. They had often counted the feathers on the war bonnets of their neighbors, the Sioux. Each feather represented a dead Chippewa, red if he had been scalped, notched if his throat had been cut, white for a woman or child. They had watched the squaws dancing about the Chippewa scalps. Before Tess had discovered and forbidden it, they had even danced themselves, singing as heartily as any:

You Ojibway, you are mean,

We will use you like a mouse,

We have got you and

We will strike you down.

My dog is very hungry,

I will give him the Ojibway scalps.

It was exactly the game for a dull November morning. They ran home for blankets. A secret store of feathers was taken from under a stone. Their weapons were mostly sticks, but Philippe, the Chippewa leader, clung to his new bow and arrow.

“But that is forbidden,” cried Deedee.

“I’ll shoot straight up. I promise it.” Philippe was almost in tears.

“Well! Have care!”

And Philippe began by having care. For full two minutes which seemed at least two hours, he shot into the air. But it would be so amusing to frighten Deedee! She was stalking about as a chieftain. How she would jump if an arrow should graze her braid!

The arrow found Andy, smiling in his little homemade chariot. With a terrible exactness, as though intent upon making a dimple, it pierced his softly bulging cheek.

There was a spurt of blood. Deedee dropped to her knees, her eyes black as coals in her face. Choking and gasping, he clung to her neck and the blood ran down her dress. Oh, Andy, Andy! She secured him passionately and struggled to her feet.

The others ran on ahead of her, calling their mother. There was no answer, and the cabin when they reached it was empty. Indian Annie came out of her shanty to tell them that Denis and Jacques had gone to Black Dog’s village, and Tess had been summoned to the fort.

Painfully detaching Andy and giving him to the squaw, Deedee ran for the fort. Her long brown legs scissored over the ground. She ducked under the arm of her friend the sentry, and made for Captain Frenshaw’s quarters. She knew, of course, that Mrs. Frenshaw was expecting. That would be where her mother had gone. The rending cries of a woman in labor came out to her as she ran.

The reason for the nearness of the DuGay cabin to the fort—and it was nearer than any squatter home—was Tess DuGay’s value when the ladies were confined. She had a natural gift in such affairs. She was moving with more than her usual placid competence about Mrs. Frenshaw’s bed, however. Deedee saw that as soon as she opened the outer door. And she noted that the ladies, hovering in the doorway between parlor and bedroom, had pale faces. Some of them looked tearful and disheveled, but Mrs. Boles, who detached herself from the group, was as cool and immaculate as usual.

“Your mother can’t possibly be spared,” she said when Deedee finished her story.

“She’d want to come.”

“But, you see, the doctor is away. He went to Black Dog’s village with some others. We’ve sent a runner, but he can’t get back in time.”

Deedee pondered in anguish. She knew that Mrs. Boles was right. Her mother would not leave Mrs. Frenshaw because Andy had been hit by an arrow. And yet —that blood—and he was so little—Mrs. Boles didn’t need to be so sure! She didn’t care, that was all. She didn’t care what happened to Andy, in spite of her sweet tone.

“I’ll speak to my ma, if you please,” cried Deedee, over a painful knob in her throat. To her chagrin, for she was a proud child, tears of wrath and worry began pouring down her face.

“Now, now,” said Eva Boles, not unkindly. “I am trying to think what is best. I’ll go to your brother, and you run for M’sieu Page. He’s almost as good as a doctor.”

M’sieu Page! Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of him herself?

Deedee fled through the big gate and down the hill, her brown braids level behind her. She did not take the path, but went like a frightened rabbit, skimming the stubble, threading the trees. The ferryman was dozing at his post but he sprang to his paddles at the sight of her. In an incredibly short space of time she was running up the path which led to the trading post.

She had never been here before, but there was no time to think of that. There was no time to think of anything. Having started to cry, she could not stop, and sobs were coming like beads on a string.

M’sieu Page was examining a pack of muskrat skins. When he saw her in the doorway, he put them down and came toward her.

“Why, it’s the little DuGay!”

“M’sieu Page! That Andy—he’s the baby—and ma is with Mrs. Frenshaw—”

He took her hand and led her to a chair. “I’ll go at once. You stay here till I get back.”

“No, no. I’ll go with you.”

“I know which cabin it is. You just tell me what’s the matter, so I’ll know what to take.”

He made up a packet of cloths and bottles. Deedee dried her face on her sleeve.

“Please, M’sieu Page. I’m all right now, and Andy—”

“I’ll take care of Andy,” he said. “But you need someone to take care of you.”

For all his side whiskers, his paternal air sat oddly upon his young face. Deedee, however, was impressed. She submitted silently as he opened the door which led from the store room.

“Mme. Elmire!” he called. “Mme. Elmire!”

And so, on Mme. Elmire’s small and capable hand, Deedee went into M’sieu Page’s house.