A Little Girl in Old Quebec - Amanda Minnie Douglas (classic novels for teens .TXT) 📗

who was listening eager-eyed and with a delicious color in her cheeks. The child lived in a sort of fairy land. Miladi was the queen, her gowns were gold and silver brocade, but what brocade was, it would have been difficult for her to describe. She was very happy in these days, growing strong so she could take walks outside the fort, though she did not venture to do much climbing. The old life was almost forgotten. Mere Dubray was very busy with her own affairs, and her husband was as exigent as any new lover. Her cookery appealed to him in the most important place, his stomach.

"And to think I have done without thee these two years," he would moan.

When she saw her, the little girl had a strange fear that at the last moment they would seize her and take her up to the fur country with them. Pani was to go; he was of some service, if you kept a sharp eye on him, and had a switch handy.

"I'll tell you," he said to Rose when he waylaid her one day, "because you never got me into trouble and had me beaten. I shall have to start with them and I will go two days' journey, so they won't suspect. Then at night I'll start back. I like Quebec, and you and the good gentleman who throws you a laugh when he passes, instead of striking you. And I'll hunt and fish, and be a sailor. I'll not starve. And you will not tell even miladi, who is so beautiful and sweet. Promise."

Rose promised. And now they were to go down the river.

"The courage, of course," and Madame glanced up smilingly. "We take the child for the present."

"I shall soon be jealous, _ma mie_, but it is a pleasure to see a bright young thing about that can talk with her eyes and not chatter shrilly. _Mon dieu!_ what voices most of the wives have, and they are transmitting them to their children. Yes; we will start at noon, and be gone two days. Destournier has some messages to deliver. Put on thy plainest frock, we are not in sunny France now."

She had learned that and only dressed up now and then for her husband's sake, or to please the child. And she had made her some pretty frocks out of petticoats quite too fine for wear here.

Rose was overjoyed. Wanamee was to accompany them. When they were ready they were piloted down to the wharf by Monsieur, and there was M. Ralph to welcome them. The river was brisk with boats and canoes and shallops. The sun glistened on the naked backs of Indian rowers bending with every stroke of the paddles to a rhythmic sort of sound, that later on grew to be regular songs. There were squaws handling canoes with grace and dexterity. One would have considered Quebec a great _entrepot_.

But the river with its beautiful bank, its groves of trees that had not yet been despoiled, its frowning rocks glinting in the sunshine, its wild flowers, its swift dazzle of birds, its great flocks of geese, snowy white, in the little coves that uttered shrill cries and then huddled together, the islands that reared grassy heads a moment and were submerged as the current swept over them.

"Why are they not drowned?" asked Rose. "Or can they swim like the little Indian boys?"

M. Giffard laughed--he often did at her quaint questions.

"They are like the trees; they have taken root ever so far down, and the tide cannot sweep them away."

"And is Quebec rooted that way? Do the rocks hold fast? And--all the places, even France?"

"They have staunch foundations. The good God has anchored them fast."

A puzzled look wavered over her face. "Monsieur, it is said the great world is round. Why does not the water spill out as it turns? It would fall out of a pail."

"Ah, child, that once puzzled wiser heads than thine. And years must pass over thy head before thou canst understand."

"When I am as big as miladi?"

"I am afraid I do not quite understand myself, though I learned it in the convent, I am quite sure. And I could not see why we did not fall off. Some of the good nuns still believed the world was flat," and miladi laughed. "Women's brains were not made for over-much study."

"Is it far to France?"

"Two months' or so sail."

"On a river?"

"Oh, on a great ocean. We must look at the Sieur's chart. Out of sight of any land for days and days."

"I should feel afraid. And if you did not know where the land was?"

"But the sailor can tell by his chart."

What a wonderful world it was. She had supposed Quebec the greatest thing in it. And now she knew so much about France and the beautiful city called Paris, where the King and Queen lived, and ladies who went gowned just like Madame, the first time she saw her. And there was an England. M. Ralph had been there and seen their island empire, which could not compare with France. She had a vague idea France was all the rest of the world.

What days they were, for the weather was unusually fine. Now and then they paused to explore some small isle, or to get fresh game. As for fish, in those days the river seemed full of them. So many small streams emptied into the St. Lawrence. Berries were abundant, and they feasted to their hearts' content. The Indians dried them in the sun for winter use.

Tadoussac was almost as busy as Quebec. As the fur monopoly had been in part broken up, there were trappers here with packs of furs, and several Indian settlements. It was Champlain's idea which Giffard was to work up, to enlist rival traders to become sharers in the traffic, and enlarge the trade, instead of keeping in one channel.

Madame and the little girl, piloted by Wanamee, visited several of the wigwams, and the surprise of the Indian women at seeing the white lady and the child was great indeed. Rose was rather afraid at first, and drew back.

"They take it that you are the wife of the great father in France, that is the King," translated Wanamee, "because you have crossed the ocean. And you must not blame their curiosity. They will do you no harm."

But they wanted to examine my lady's frock and her shoes, with their great buckles that nearly covered her small foot. Her sleeves came in for a share of wonder, and her white, delicate arms they loaded with curious bracelets, made of shells ground and polished until they resembled gems. Then, too, they must feast them with a dish of Indian cookery, which seemed ground maize broken by curiously arranged millstones, in which were put edible roots, fish, and strips of dried meat, that proved quite too much for miladi's delicate stomach. The child had grown accustomed to it, as Lalotte sometimes indulged in it, but she always shook her head in disdain and frowned on it.

"Such _pot au feu_ no one would eat at home," she would declare emphatically.

They were loaded with gifts when they came away. Beautifully dressed deerskins, strips of work that were remarkable, miladi thought, and she wondered how they could accomplish so much with so few advantages.

The child had been a great source of amusement to all on shipboard. Her utter ignorance of the outside world, her quaint frankness and innocence tempted Giffard to play off on her curiosity and tell wonderful tales of the mother country. And then Wanamee would recount Indian legends and strange charms and rites used by the sages of the Abenaquis in the time of her forefathers, before any white man had been seen in the country.

Then their homeward route began, the pause at the Isle d'Orleans, the narrowing river, the more familiar Point Levis, the frowning rocks, the palisades, and the fort. All the rest was wildness, except the clearing that had been made and kept free that no skulking enemy should take an undue advantage and surprise them by a sudden onslaught.

The Sieur de Champlain came down to meet them. Rose was leaping from point to point like a young deer. It was no longer a pale face, it had been a little changed by sun and wind.

"Well, little one, hast thou made many discoveries?"

"Oh, yes, indeed. I would not mind going to France now. And we have brought back some such queer things; beautiful, too. But we did not like some of the cooking, miladi and I, and Quebec is dearer, for it is home," and her eyes shone with delight.

"Home! Thanks, little maid, for your naming it on this wise," and he smiled down in the eager face as he turned to greet Madame.

She was a little weary of the wildness and loneliness of dense woods and great hills and banks of the river, that roared and shrieked at times as if ghost-haunted. Wanamee's stories had touched the superstitious threads of her brain.

M. Giffard took the Sieur's arm and drew him a trifle aside. Destournier offered his to the lady and assisted her up the rocky steep. Many a tragedy would pass there before old Quebec became new Quebec, with famous and heroic story.

She leaned a little heavily on his arm. "The motion of the ship is still swaying my brain," she remarked, with a soft laugh. "So, if I am awkward, I crave your patience. Oh, see that child! She will surely fall."

Rose was climbing this way and that, now hugging a young tree growing out of some crevice, then letting it go with a great flap, now snatching a handful of wild flowers, and treading the fragrance out of wild grapes.

"She is sure-footed like any other wild thing. I saw her first perched upon that great gray rock yonder."

"The daring little monkey! I believe they brave every danger. I wonder if we shall ever learn anything about her. The Sieur has so much on hand, and men are wont to drop the thread of a pursuit or get it tangled up with other things, so it would be too much of a burthen to ask him. And another year I shall go to Paris myself. If she does not develop too much waywardness, and keeps her good looks, I shall take her."

"Then I think you may be quite sure of a companion."

Wanamee had preceded them and thrown open the room to the slant rays of western sunshine. Madame sank down on a couch, exhausted. The Indian girl brought in some refreshments.

"Stay and partake of some," she said, with a winsome smile. "I cannot be bereft of everybody."

But the child came in presently, eager and full of news that was hardly news to her, after all.

"Pani is here," she exclaimed. "Madame Dubray and her husband have gone with the trappers. They took Pani. He said he would run away. They kept him two days, and tied him at night, but he loosened the thongs and ran nearly all night. Then he has hidden away, for some new people have taken the house. And he wants to stay here. He will be my slave."

She looked eagerly at my lady.

"Thou art getting to be such a venturesome midge that it may be well to have so devoted an attendant. Yet I remember he