A Little Girl in Old Detroit - Amanda Minnie Douglas (children's ebooks online txt) 📗

very good, Mam'selle. While I am away I want you to pray for me that sometime God will bring me back safe and allow me to see you again. And I shall say when I see the sun rising on the other side of the world, 'It is night now in old Detroit and there is a little girl praying for me.'"

"O Monsieur, would you be glad?" Her eyes were suffused with a mistlike joy. "Then I will pray for you. That is so different from praying for people you don't know anything about, and to--to saints. I don't know them either. I feel as if they sat in long rows and just nodded to you."

"Pray to the good God, my child," he returned gravely. "And if you learn to read and write you might send me a letter."

Her eyes opened wide in amazement. "Oh, I could never learn enough for that!" she cried despairingly.

"Yes, you can, you will. M. Loisel will arrange it for you. And twice a week you will go to the sisters, I have promised Father Rameau. There will be plenty of time to run and play besides."

Jeanne Angelot looked steadily down on the ground. A caterpillar was dragging its length along and she touched it with her foot.

"It was once a butterfly. It will spin itself up in a web and hang somewhere all winter, and in the spring turn to a butterfly again."

"That ugly thing!" in intense surprise.

"And how the trees drop their leaves in the autumn and their buds are done up in a brown sheath until the spring sunshine softens it and the tiny green leaf comes out, and why the birds go to warmer countries, because they cannot stand snow and sleet, and return again; why the bee shuts himself up in the hollow tree and sleeps, and a hundred beautiful things. And when I come back we will talk them over."

"O Monsieur!" Her rose lips quivered and the dimple in her chin deepened as she drew a long breath that stirred every pulse of her being.

He had touched the right chord, awakened a new life within her. There was a struggle, yet he liked her the better for not giving up her individuality in a moment.

"Monsieur," she exclaimed with a new humility, "I will try--indeed I will."

"That is a brave girl. M. Loisel will attend to the matter. And you will be very happy after a while. It will come hard at first, but you must be courageous and persevering. And now I must say good-by for a long while. Pani I know will take excellent care of you."

He rose and shook hands with the woman, whose eyes were full of love for the child of her adoption. Then he took both of Jeanne's little brown hands in his and pressed them warmly.

She watched him as he threaded his way through the narrow street and turned the corner. Then she rushed into the house and threw herself on the small pallet, sobbing as if her heart would break. No one for whom she cared had ever gone out of her life before. With Pani there was complete ownership, but Monsieur St. Armand was a new experience. Neither had she really loved her playmates, she had found them all so different from herself. Next to Pani stood Wenonah and the grave brown-faced babies who tumbled about the floor when they were not fastened to their birch bark canoe cradle with a flat end balancing it against the wall. She sometimes kissed them, they were so quaint and funny.

"_Ma mie, ma mie_, let me take thee to my bosom," Pani pleaded. "He will return again as he said, for he keeps his word. And thou wilt be a big girl and know many things, and he will be proud of thee. And M. Bellestre may come."

Jeanne's sobs grew less. She had been thrust so suddenly into a new world of tender emotion that she was frightened. She did not want to go out again, and sat watching Pani as she made some delicious broth out of fresh green corn, that was always a great treat to the child.

It was true there was a new stir in the atmosphere of old Detroit. For General Wayne with the prescience of an able and far-sighted patriot had said, "To make good citizens they must learn the English language and there must be schools. Education will be the corner stone of this new country."

Governor St. Clair had a wide territory to look after. There were many unsettled questions about land and boundaries and proper laws. New settlements were projected, but Detroit was left to adjust many questions for itself. A school was organized where English and various simple branches should be taught. It was opposed by Father Gilbert, who insisted that all the French Catholics should be sent to the Recollet house, and trained in Church lore exclusively. But the wider knowledge was necessary since there were so many who could not read, and the laws and courts would be English.

The school session was half a day. The better class people had a few select schools, and sometimes several families joined and had their children taught at the house of some parent and shared expenses.

Jeanne felt like a wild thing caught and thrust into a cage. There were disputes and quarrels, but she soon established a standing for herself. The boys called her Indian, and a name that had been flung at her more than once--tiger cat.

"You will see that I can scratch," she rejoined, threateningly.

"I will learn English, Pani, and no one shall interfere. M. Loisel said if I went to the sisters on Wednesday and Friday afternoons that Father Rameau would be satisfied. He is nice and kindly, but I hate Father Gilbert. And," laughingly, "I think they are all afraid of M. Bellestre. Do you suppose he will take me home with him when he comes? I do not want to leave Detroit."

Pani sighed. She liked the old town as well.

Jeanne flew to the woods when school was over. She did envy the Indian girls their freedom for they were not trained in useful arts as were the French girls. Oh, the frolics in the woods, the hunting of berries and grapes, the loads of beautiful birch and ash bark, the wild flowers that bloomed until frost came! and the fields turning golden with the ripening corn, secure from Indian raids! The thrifty French farmers watched it with delight.

Marie De Ber had been kept very busy since the spinning began. Madame thought schooling shortsighted business except for boys who would be traders by and by, and must learn how to reckon correctly and do a little writing.

They went after the last gleaning of berries one afternoon, when the autumn sunshine turned all to gold.

"O Marie," cried Jeanne, "here is a harvest! Come at once, and if you want them don't shout to anyone."

"O Jeanne, how good you are! For you might have called Susanne, who goes to school, and I have thought you liked her better than you do me."

"No, I do not like her now. She pinched little Jacques Moet until he cried out and then she laid it to Pierre Dessau, who was well thrashed for it, and I called her a coward. I am afraid girls are not brave."

"Come nearer and let us hide in this thicket. For if I do not get a big lot of berries mother will send Rose next time, she threatened."

"You can have some of mine. Pani will not care; for she never scolds at such a thing."

"Pani is very good to you. Mother complains that she spoils you and that you are being brought up like a rich girl."

Jeanne laughed. "Pani never struck me in my life. She isn't quite like a mother, you see, but she loves me, loves me!" with emphasis.

"There are so many for mother to love," and the girl sighed.

"Jeanne," she began presently, "I want to tell you something. Mother said I must not mention it until it was quite settled. There is--some one--he has been at father's shop and--and is coming on Sunday to see mother--"

Jeanne stood up suddenly. "It is Martin Lavosse," she said. "You danced with him. He is so gay. O Marie!" and her face was alight.

"No, it is not Martin. I would not mind if it were. But he is so young, only eighteen."

"You are young, too."

Marie sighed again. "You have not seen him. It is Antoine Beeson. He is a boat builder, and has been buying some of the newly surveyed land down at the southern end. Father has known him quite a long while. His sister has married and gone to Frenchtown. He is lonely and wants a wife."

"But there are many girls looking for husbands," hesitated Jeanne, not knowing whether to approve or oppose; and Marie's husband was such a new idea.

"So father says. And we have five girls, you know. Rose is as tall as I and has a prettier face and dances like a sprite. And there are so many of the fur hunters and traders who drink and spend their money, and sometimes beat their wives. Margot Beeson picked out a wife for him, but he said she was too old. It was Lise Moet."

Jeanne laughed. "I should not want to live with her, her voice goes through your head like a knife. She is little Jacques' aunt and the children are all afraid of her. How old is Antoine?"

"Twenty-eight!" in a low, protesting tone.

"Just twice as old as you!" said Jeanne with a little calculation.

"Yes, I can't help but think of it. And when I am thirty he will be an old man sixty years old, bent down and wrinkled and cross, maybe."

"O no, Marie," cried Jeanne, eagerly. "It is not that way one reckons. Everything does not double up so fast. He is fourteen years older than you, and when you are thirty he can only be fourteen years older than you. Count up on your ten fingers--that makes forty, and four more, he will be forty-four."

Marie's mouth and eyes opened in surprise. "Are you quite sure?" with an indrawn breath.

"O yes, sure as that the river runs to the lake. It is what they teach at school. And though it is a great trouble to make yourself remember, and you wonder what it is all about, then at other times you can use the knowledge and are happy and glad over it. There are so many queer things," smiling a little. "And they are not in the catechism or the prayers. The sisters shake their heads over them."

"But can they be quite right?" asked Marie in a kind of awesome tone.

"Why they seem right for the men to know," laughed Jeanne. "How else could they be bartering and counting money? And it is said that Madame Ganeau goes over her husband's books every week since they found Jules Froment was a thief, and kept wrong accounts, putting the money in his own pocket."

Jeanne raised her voice triumphantly.

"Oh, here they are!" cried Cecile followed by a string of girls. "And look, they have found a harvest, their pails are almost full. You mean, selfish things!"

"Why you had the same right to be hunting everywhere," declared Jeanne stoutly. "We found a good