A Little Girl in Old Detroit

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"Sing," said the lover when they had gone down a little ways, for most
of the crafts were given over to melody and laughter.

He had a fine voice. Singing was the great delight of those days, and
nothing was more beguiling than the songs of the voyageurs. Delisse
joined and Marie's soft voice was like a lapping wave. Madame Ganeau
talked low to Pani about the child.

"It will not do for her to run wild much longer," she said with an air
of authority. "She is growing so fast. Is there no one? Had not Father
Rameau better write to M. Bellestre and see what his wishes are? And
there is the Recollet house, though girls do not get much training for
wives. Prayers and beads and penance are all well enough, some deserve
them, but I take it girls were meant for wives, and those who can get no
husbands or have lost them may be Saint Catherine's maids."

"Yes," answered Pani with a quaking heart; "M. Bellestre would know."

"A thousand pities Madame should die. But I think there is wild blood in
the child. You should have kept the Indian woman and made her tell her
story."

"She disappeared so quickly, and Madame Bellestre was so good and kind.
The orphan of _Le bon Dieu_, she called her. Yes, I will see the good
father."

"And I will have a talk with him when Delisse goes to confession."
Madame Ganeau gave a soft, relieved sigh. "My duty is done, almost, to
my children. They will be well married, which is a great comfort to a
mother. And now I can devote myself to my grandchildren. Antoine has two
fine boys and Jeanne a little daughter. It is a pleasant time of life
with a woman. And Jean is prospering. We need not worry about our old
age unless these Americans overturn everything."

Pani was a good listener and Madame Ganeau loved to talk when there was
no one to advance startling ideas or contradict her. Her life had been
prosperous and she took the credit to herself. Jean Ganeau had been a
good husband, tolerably sober, too, and thrifty.

The two older girls chatted when they were not singing. It was seldom
Marie had a holiday, and this was full of delight. Would she ever have a
lover like Jacques Graumont, who would look at her with such adoring
eyes and slyly snatch her hand when her mother was not looking?

Jeanne was full of enjoyment and capers. Every bird that flashed in and
out of the trees, the swans and wild geese that squawked in terror and
scuttled into little nooks along the shore edge as the boats passed
them, the fish leaping up now and then, brought forth exclamations of
delight. She found a stick with which she beat up the water and once
leaned out so far that Louis caught her by the arm and pulled her back.

"Let go. You hurt me!" she exclaimed sharply.

"You will be over."

"As if I could not care for myself."

"You are the spirit of the river. Are your mates down there? What if
they summon you?"

"Then why should I not go to them?" recklessly.

"Because I will not let you."

He looked steadily into her eyes. His were a little blurred and had an
expression that did not please her. She turned away.

"If I should go down and get the gold hidden under the sands--"

"But a serpent guards it."

"I am not afraid of a snake. I have killed more than one. And there are
good spirits who will help you if you have the right charm."

"But you do not need to go. Some one will work for you. Some one will
get the gold and treasure. If you will wait--"

"Well, I do not want the treasure. Pani and I have enough."

She tossed her head, still looking away.

"Do you know that I must go up to Micmac? I thought to stay all summer,
but my father has sent."

"And men have to obey their fathers as girls do their mothers;" in an
idly indifferent tone.

"It is best, Jeanne; I want to make a fortune."

"I hope you will;" but there was a curl to her lip.

"And I may come back next spring with the furs."

She nodded indifferently.

"My father has another secret, which may be worth a good deal."

She made no answer but beat up the water again. There was nothing but
pleasure in her mind.

"Will you be glad to see me then? Will you miss me?"

"Why--of course. But I think I do not like you as well as I used," she
cried frankly.

"Not like me as well?" He was amazed. "Why, Jeanne?"

"You have grown so--so--" neither her thoughts nor her vocabulary were
very extensive. "I do not think I like men until they are quite old and
have beautiful white beards and voices that are like the water when it
flows softly. Or the boys who can run and climb trees with you and laugh
over everything. Men want so much--what shall I say?" puzzled to express
herself.

"Concession. Agreement," he subjoined; "that is right," with a decisive
nod. "I hate it," with a vicious swish in the water.

"But when your way is wrong--"

"My way is for myself," with dignity.

"But if you have a lover, Jeanne?"

"I shall never have one. Madame Ganeau says so. I am going to keep a
wild little girl with no one but Pani until--until I am a very old woman
and get aches and pains and perhaps die of a fever."

She was in a very willful mood and she was only a child. One or two
years would make a difference. If his father made a great fortune, and
after all no one knew where she came from--he could marry in very good
families, girls in plenty had smiled on him during the past two months.

Was it watching these lovers that had stirred his blood? Why should he
care for this child?

"Had we not better turn about?" said Jacques Graumont, glancing around.

There were purple shadows on one side of the river and high up on the
distant hills and a soft yellow pink sheen on the water instead of the
blaze of gold. A clear, high atmosphere that outlined everything on the
Canadian shore as if it half derided its proud neighbor's jubilee.

Other boats were returning. Songs that were so gay an hour ago took on a
certain pensiveness, akin to the purple and dun stealing over the river.
It moved Jeanne Angelot strangely; it gave her a sense of exaltation, as
if she could fly like a bird to some strange country where a mother
loved her and was waiting for her.

When Louis Marsac spoke next to her she could have struck him in
childish wrath. She wanted no one but the fragrant loneliness and the
voices of nature.

"Don't talk to me!" she cried impatiently. "I want to think. I like what
is in my own mind better."

Then the anger went slowly out of her face and it settled in lovely
lines. Her mouth was a scarlet blossom, and her hair clung mistlike
about brow and throat, softened by the warmth.

They came grating against the dock after having waited for their turn.
Marsac caught her arm and let the others go before her, and she, still
in a half dream, waited. Then he put his arm about her, turned her one
side, and pressed a long, hot kiss on her lips. His breath was still
tainted with the brandy he had been drinking earlier in the day.

She was utterly amazed at the first moment. Then she doubled up her
small hand and struck the mouth that had so profaned her.

"Hah! knave," cried a voice beside her. "Let the child alone! And answer
to me. What business had you with this canoe? Child, where are your
friends?"

"My business with it was that I hired and paid for it," cried Marsac,
angrily, and the next instant he felt for his knife.

"Paid for it?" repeated the other. "Then come and convict a man of
falsehood. Put up your knife. Let us have fair play. I had hired the
canoe in the morning and went up the river, and was to have it this
afternoon, and he declared you took it without leave or license."

"That is a lie!" declared Marsac, passionately.

"Jeanne! Jeanne!" cried Pani in distress.

The stranger lifted her out. Jeanne looked back at Marsac, and then at
the young man.

"You will not fight him?" she said to the stranger. Fights and brawls
were no uncommon events.

"We shall have nothing to fight about if the man has lied to us both.
But I wouldn't care to be in _his_ skin. Come along, my man."

"I am not your man," said Marsac, furiously angry.

"Well--stranger, then. One can hardly say friend," in a dignified
fashion that checked Marsac.

Pani caught the child. Pierre was on the other side of her. "What was
it?" he asked. How good his stolid, rugged face looked!

"A quarrel about the boat. Run and see how they settle it, Pierre."

"But you and Marie--and it is getting dark."

"Run, run! We are not afraid." She stamped her foot and Pierre obeyed.

Marie clung to her. People jostled them, but they made their way through
the narrow, crowded street. The bells were ringing, more from long habit
now. Soldiers in uniform were everywhere, some as guards, caring for the
noisier ones. Madame De Ber was leaning over her half door, and gave a
cry of joy.

"Where hast thou been all day, and where is Pierre, my son?" she
demanded.

The three tried to explain at once. They had had a lovely day, and
Madame Ganeau, with her daughter and promised son-in-law, were along in
the sail down the river. And Pierre had gone to see the result of a
dispute--

"I sent him," cried Jeanne, frankly. "Oh, here he comes," as Pierre ran
up breathless.

"O my son, thou art safe--"

"It was no quarrel of mine," said Pierre, "and if it had been I have two
good fists and a foot that can kick. It was that Jogue who hired his
boat twice over and pretended to forget. But he gave back the money. He
had told a lie, however, for he said Marsac took the canoe without his
knowledge, and then he declared he had been so mixed up--I think he was
half drunk--that he could not remember. They were going to hand him over
to the guard, but he begged so piteously they let him off. Then he and
Louis Marsac took another drink."

Jeanne suddenly snatched up her skirt and scrubbed her mouth vigorously.

"It has been a tiresome day," exclaimed Pani, "and thou must have a
mouthful of supper, little one, and go to bed."

She put her arm over the child's shoulder, with a caress; and Jeanne
pressed her rosy cheek on the hand.

"I do not want any supper but I will go to bed at once," she replied in
a weary tone.

"It is said that at the eastward in the Colonies they keep just such a
July day with flags and confusion and cannon firing and bells ringing.
One such day in a lifetime is enough for me," declared Madame De Ber.

They kept the Fourth of July ever afterward, but this was really their
national birthday.

Jeanne scrubbed her mouth again before she said her little prayer and in
five minutes she was soundly asleep. But the man who had kissed her and
who had been her childhood's friend staggered homeward after a
roistering evening, never losing sight of the blow she had struck him.

"The tiger cat!" he said with what force he could summon. "She shall pay
for this, if it is ten years! In three or four years I will marry her
and then I will train her to know who is master. She shall get down on
her knees to me if she is handsome as a princess, if she were a queen's
daughter."

Laurent St. Armand went home to his father a good deal amused after all
his disappointment and vexation, for he had been compelled to take an
inferior canoe.

"_Mon pere_," he said, as his father sat contentedly smoking, stretched
out in a most comfortable fashion, "I have seen your little gossip of
the morning, and I came near being in a quarrel with a son of the trader
De Marsac, but we settled it amicably and I should have had a much
better opinion of him, if he had not stopped to drink Jogue's vile
brandy. He's a handsome fellow, too."

"And is the little girl his sister?"

"O no, not in anyway related." Then Laurent told the story, guessing at
the kiss from the blow that had followed.

"Good, I like that," declared St. Armand. "Whose child is it?"

"That I do not know, but she lives up near the Citadel and her name is
Jeanne Angelot. Shall I find her for you to-morrow?"

"She is a brave little girl."

"I do not like Marsac."

"His mother was an Indian, the daughter of some chief, I believe. De
Marsac is a shrewd fellow. He has great faith in the copper mines.
Strange how much wealth lies hidden in the earth! But the quarrel?" with
a gesture of interest.

"Oh, it was nothing serious and came about Jogue's lying. I rated him
well for it, but he had been drinking and there was not much
satisfaction. Well, it has been a grand day and now we shall see who
next rules the key to the Northwest. There is great agitation about the
Mississippi river and the gulf at the South. It is a daring country,
_mon pere_."

The elder laughed with a softened approval.

Louis Marsac did not come near St. Joseph street the next day. He slept
till noon, when he woke with a humiliating sense of having quite lost
his balance, for he seldom gave way to excesses. It was late in the
afternoon when he visited the old haunts and threw himself under
Jeanne's oak. Was she very angry? Pouf! a child's anger. What a sweet
mouth she had! And she was none the worse for her spirit. But she was a
tempestuous little thing when you ran counter to her ideas, or whims,
rather.

Since she had neither birth nor wealth, and was a mere child, there
would be no lovers for several years, he could rest content with that
assurance. And if he wanted her then--he gave an indifferent nod.

Down at the Merchants' wharf, the following morning, he found the boats
were to sail at once. He must make his adieus to several friends. Madame
Ganeau must be congratulated on so fine a son-in-law, the De Bers must
have an opportunity to wish him _bon voyage_.

Pani sat out on the cedar plank that made the door-sill, and she was
cutting deerskin fringe for next winter's leggings. "Jeanne," she
called, "Louis has come to say good-by."

Jeanne Angelot came out of the far room with a curious hesitation. Pani
had been much worried for fear she was ill, but Jeanne said laughingly
that she was only tired.

"Why, you run all day like a deer and never complain," was the troubled
comment.

"Am I complaining, Pani?"

"No, Mam'selle. But I never knew you to want to lie on the cot in the
daytime."

"But I often lie out under the oak with my head in your lap."

"To be sure."

"I'm not always running or climbing."

"No, little one;" with smiling assent.

The little one came forward now and leaned against Pani's shoulder.

"When I shall come back I do not know--in a year or two. I wonder if you
will learn to talk English? We shall all have to be good Americans. And
now you must wish me _bon voyage_. What shall I bring you when I come?
Beaver or otter, or white fox--"

"Madame Reamaur hath a cape of beautiful silver fox, and when the wind
blows through it there are curious dazzles on every tip."

"Surely thou hast grand ideas, Jeanne Angelot."

"I should not wear such a thing. I am only a little girl, and that is
for great ladies. And Wenonah is making me a beautiful cape of feathers
and quills, and the breast of wild ducks. She thinks Pani cured her
little baby, and this is her offering. So I hardly want anything. But I
wish thee good luck and prosperity, and a wife who will be meek and
obedient, and study your pleasure in everything."

"Thank you a thousand times." He held out his hand. Pani pressed it
cordially, but Jeanne did not touch it.

"The little termagant!" he said to himself. "She has not forgiven me.
But girls forget. And in a year or two she will be longing for finery.
Silver fox, forsooth! That would be a costly gift. Where does the child
get her ideas? Not from her neighborhood nor the Indian women she
consorts with. Nor even Madame Ganeau," with an abrupt laugh.

Jeanne was rather quiet all that day and did not go outside the
palisade. But afterward she was her own irrepressible self. She climbed
the highest trees, she swung from one limb to another, she rode astride
saplings, she could manage a canoe and swim like a fish, and was the
admiration of the children in her vicinity, though all of the
southwestern end of the settlement knew her. She could whistle a bird to
her and chatter with the squirrels, who looked out of beady eyes as if
amazed and delighted that a human being belonging to the race of the
destroyer understood their language. She had beaten Jacques Filion for
robbing birds' nests, and she was a whole year younger, if anyone really
knew how old she was.

"There will never be a brave good enough for you," said the woman
Wenonah, who lived in a sort of wigwam outside the palisades and had
learned many things from her white sisters that had rather unsettled her
Indian faith in braves. She kept her house and little garden, made bead
work and embroidery for the officers and official ladles, and cared for
her little papooses with unwonted mother love. For Paspah spent most of
his time stretched in the sunshine smoking his pipe, and often sold his
game for a drink of rum. Several times he had been induced to go up
north with the fur hunters, and Wenonah was happy and cheerful without
him.

"I do not want a brave," Jeanne would fling out laughingly. "I shall be
brave enough for myself."

"And thou art sensible, Red Rose!" nodding sagely. "There is no father
to bargain thee away."

"Well, if fathers do that, then I am satisfied to be without one,"
returned the child gayly.

CHAPTER IV.

JEANNE'S HERO.

There were many changes to make in the new government. Under the English
there had been considerable emigration of better class people and more
personal liberty. It was no longer everything for a king whose rigorous
command was that there should be no thought of self-government, that
every plan and edict must come from a court thousands of miles away,
that knew nothing of the country.

The French peasants scattered around the posts still adored their
priests, but they had grown more ambitious and thrifty. Amiable, merry,
and contented they endured their privations cheerfully, built bark and
log cottages, many of them surrounded by sharpened palisades. There were
Indian wigwams as well, and the two nations affiliated quite readily.
The French were largely agriculturists, though many inside the Fort
traded carefully, but the English claimed much of this business
afterward.

Captain Porter was very busy restoring order. Wells had been filled with
stones, windows broken, fortifications destroyed. Arthur St. Clair had
been appointed Governor of the Territory, which was then a part of
Illinois, but the headquarters were at Marietta. Little attention was
paid to Detroit further than to recognize it as a center of trade, while
emigrants were pouring into the promising sites a little farther below.

M. St. Armand had much business on hand with the new government, and was
a most welcome guest in the better class families. The pretty
demoiselles made much of Laurent and there were dinners and dances and
card playing and sails on the river during the magnificent moonlight
nights. The young American officers were glad of a little rest from the
rude alarms of war that had been theirs so long, although they relaxed
no vigilance. The Indians were hardly to be trusted in spite of their
protestations, their pipes of peace, and exchange of wampum.

The vessel was coming gayly up the river flying the new flag. There was
always a host of idle people and children about the wharf, and now they
thronged to see this General Anthony Wayne, who had not only been
victorious in battles, but had convinced Joseph Brant, Little Turtle,
and Blue Jacket that they were mistaken in their hopes of a British
re-conquest, and had gained by honorable treaty much of the country that
had been claimed by the Indians. Each month the feeling was growing
stronger that the United States was to be a positive and enduring power.

General Wayne stepped from the boat to the pier amid cheers, waving of
flags and handkerchiefs. The soldiers were formed in line to escort him.
He looked tired and worn, but there was a certain spirit in his fine,
courageous eyes that answered the glances showered upon him, although
his cordial words could only reach the immediate circle.

Jeanne caught a glimpse of him and stood wondering. Her ideas of heroes
were vague and limited. She had seen the English dignitaries in their
scarlet and gold lace, their swords and trappings, and this man looked
plain beside them. Yet he or some power behind him had turned the
British soldiers out of Detroit. What curious kind of strength was it
that made men heroes? Something stirred within Jeanne that had never
been there before,--it seemed to rise in her throat and almost strangle
her, to heat her brain, and make her heart throb; her first sense of
admiration for the finer power that was not brute strength,--and she
could not understand it. No one about her could explain mental growth.

Then another feeling of gladness rushed over her that made every pulse
bound with delight.

"O Pani," and she clutched the woman's coarse gown, "there is the man
who talked to me the day they put up the flag--don't you remember? And
see--he smiles, yes, he nods to me, to me!"

She caught Pani's hand and gave it an exultant beat as if it had been a
drum. It was near enough like parchment that had been beaten with many a
drumstick. She was used to the child's vehemence.

"I wish he were this great general! Pani, did you ever see a king?"

"I have seen great chiefs in grand array. I saw Pontiac--"

"Pouf!" with a gesture that made her seem taller. "Madame Ganeau's
mother saw a king once--Louis somebody--and he sat in a great chariot
and bowed to people, and was magnificent. That is such a grand word.
And it is the way this man looks. Suppose a king came and spoke to
you--why, you would be glad all your life."

Pani's age and her phlegmatic Indian blood precluded much enthusiasm,
but she smiled down in the eager face.

The escort was moving on. The streets were too narrow to have any great
throng of carriages, but General Wayne stepped into one. (The hospitable
De Moirel House had been placed at his service until he could settle
himself to his liking.) Madame Moirel and her two daughters, with
Laurent St. Armand, were in the one that followed. Some of the officers
and the chief citizens were on horseback.

Then the crowd began to disperse in the slow, leisurely fashion of
people who have little to do. Some men took to their boats. It did not
need much to make a holiday then, and many were glad of the excuse. A
throng of idlers followed in the _chemin du ronde_.

Pani and her charge turned in the other direction. There was the thud of
a horse, and Jeanne stepped half aside, then gave a gay, bright laugh as
she shook the curls out of her eyes.

"So you have not forgotten me?" said the attractive voice that would
have almost won one against his will.

"O no, M'sieu. I knew you in a moment. I could not forget you."

"Thank you, _ma fille_." The simple adoration touched him. Her eyes
were full of the subtle glow of delight.

"You know what we spoke of that day, and now General Wayne has come. Did
you see him?"

"O yes, M'sieu. I looked sharp."

"And were you pleased?" Something in her expression led him to think she
was not quite satisfied, yet he smiled.

"I think you are grander," she returned, simply.

Then he laughed, but it was such a tender sound no one could be offended
at it.

"Monsieur," with a curious dignity, "did you ever see a king?"

"Yes, my child, two of them. The English king, and the poor French king
who was put to death, and the great Napoleon, the Emperor."

"Were they very--I know one splendid word, M'sieu, _magnifique_, but I
like best the way the English say it, magnificent. And were they--"

"They were and are common looking men. Your Washington here is a peer to
them. My child, kings are of human clay like other men; not as good or
as noble as many another one."

"I am sorry," she said, with quiet gravity, which betrayed her
disappointment.

"And you do not like General Wayne?"

"O Monsieur, he has done great things for us. I hear them talk about
him. Yes, you know I _must_ like him, that is--I do not understand about
likes and all that, why your heart suddenly goes out to one person and
shuts up to another when neither of them may have done anything for
you. I have been thinking of so many things lately, since I saw you. And
Pierre De Ber asked the good father, when he went to be catechised on
Friday, if the world was really round. And Pere Rameau said it was not a
matter of salvation and that it made no difference whether it was round
or square. Pierre is sure it must be a big, flat plain. You know we can
go out ever so far on the prairies and it is quite level."

"You must go to school, little one. Knowledge will solve many doubts.
There will be better schools and more of them. Where does your father
live? I should like to see him. And who is this woman?" nodding to
Jeanne's attendant.

"That is Pani. She has always cared for me. I have no father, Monsieur,
and we cannot be sure about my mother. I haven't minded but I think now
I would like to have some parents, if they did not beat me and make me
work."

"Pani is an Indian?"

"Yes. She was Monsieur Bellestre's servant. And one day, under a great
oak outside the palisade, some one, an Indian squaw, dropped me in her
lap. Pani could not understand her language, but she said in French,
'Maman dead, dead.' And when M. Bellestre went away, far, far to the
south on the great river, he had the little cottage fixed for Pani and
me, and there we live."

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