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

it. Mademoiselle, I did not know you had any such fine friends."

Jeanne did not mind the carping tone.

"Thank you. I must go and tell Pani," and she skipped away, knowing that Pani was not in the house, but she wanted to give vent to her joy.

She danced about the old room and her words had a delight that was like music. "He has not forgotten me! he has not forgotten me!" was her glad song. The disappointment that she had missed him came afterward.

For although Detroit was not very large at this time, one might have wandered about a good deal and not seen the one person it would have been a pleasure to meet. And Jeanne was much more at home outside the palisade. The business jostling and the soldiers gave her a slight sense of fear and the crowding was not to her taste. She liked the broad, free sweep outside. And whether she had inherited a peculiar pride and delicacy from the parents no one knew; certain it was she would put herself in no one's way. Others came to her, she felt then every one must.

She could not have understood the many claims upon Monsieur St. Armand. There were days when he had to study his tablets to remember even a dinner engagement. He was called into council by General Wayne, he had to go over to the Canada side with some delicate negotiations about the upper part of the Territory, he was deeply interested in the opening and working of the copper mines, and in the American Fur Company, so it was hardly to be wondered at that he should forget about the little girl when there were so many important things.

The wedding was not half so tiresome then. And oh, what glorious weather it was, just enough sharpness at night to bring out all the fragrant dewy smells! The far-off forests glowed like gardens of wonderful bloom when the sun touched them with his marvelous brilliancy. And the river would have been a study for an artist or a fairy pen.

So one morning the bell of old St. Anne's rung out a cheerful peal. It had been rebuilt and enlarged once, but it had a quaintly venerable aspect. And up the aisle the troop of white clad maidens walked reverently and knelt before the high altar where the candles were burning and there was an odor of incense beside the spice of evergreens.

The priest made a very sacred ceremony of the marriage. Jeanne listened in half affright. All their lives long, in sickness and health, in misfortune, they must never cease to love, never allow any wavering fancies, but go on to old age, to death itself.

Delisse looked very happy when her veil was thrown back. And then they had a gala time. Friends came to see the new house and drink the bride's health and wish the husband good luck. And the five bridesmaids and their five attendants came to tea. There was much anxiety when the cups were turned, and blushes and giggles and exclamations, as an old Indian woman, who had a great reputation for foretelling, and would surely have been hung in the Salem witchcraft, looked them over with an air of mystery, and found the figure of a man with an outstretched hand, in the bottom of Marie De Ber's cup.

"And she's the youngest. That isn't fair!" cried several of the girls, while Madelon Dace smiled serenely, for she knew when the next trappers came in her lover would be among them, and a speedy wedding follow. Marie had never walked from church with a young man.

Then the dance in the evening! That was out of doors under the stars, in the court at the back of the house. The Loisel brothers came with their fiddles, and there was great merriment in a simple, delightful fashion, and several of the maids had honeyed words said to them that meant a good deal, and held out promises of the future. For though they took their religion seriously in the services of the Church, they were gay and light hearted, pleasure loving when the time of leisure came, or at festivals and marriages.


CHAPTER V.

AN UNKNOWN QUANTITY.

"There was a pretty wedding to-day in St. Anne's," said Madelon Fleury, glancing up at Laurent St. Armand, with soft, dark eyes. "I looked for you. I should have asked you formally," laughing and showing her pearly teeth, "but we had hardly thought of going. It was a sudden thing. And the bridesmaids were quite a sight."

"There is an old English proverb," began Madame Fleury--


"'Who changes her name and not the letter,
Marries for worse and not the better.'


and both names begin alike."

"But they are French," appended Lisa, brightly. "The prediction may have no effect."

"It is to be hoped it will not," commented Monsieur Fleury. "Jacques Graumont is a nice, industrious young fellow, and not given to drink. Now there will be business enough, and he is handy and expert at boat building, while the Ganeaus are thrifty people. M. Ganeau does a good business in provisioning the traders when they go north. Did you wish the young couple success, Madelon?"

The girl flushed. "I do not know her. We have met the mother occasionally. To tell the truth, I do not enjoy this mixing up of traders and workmen and--" she hesitated.

"And quality," appended Lisa, with a mischievous glance at her sister.

"We are likely to have more of it than less," said her father, gravely. "These Americans have some curious ideas. While they are proud enough to trace their ancestry back to French or English or even Italian rank, they taboo titles except such as are won by merit. And it must be confessed they have had many brave men among them, heroes animated by broader views than the first conquerors of the country."

"Yes," exclaimed St. Armand, "France made a great mistake and has lost her splendid heritage. She insisted on continuing the old world policy of granting court favorites whatever they asked, without studying the conditions of the new world. Then England pinned her faith and plans to a military colonization that should emanate from a distant throne. It is true she gave a larger liberty, a religious liberty, and exploited the theory of homes instead of mere trading posts. The American has improved on all this. It is as if he said, 'I will conquer the new world by force of industry; there shall be equal rights to homes, to labor, to'--there is a curious and delightful sounding sentence in their Declaration, which is a sort of corner stone--'life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.' One man's idea of happiness is quite different from another's, however;" smiling.

"And there will be clashing. There is much to do, and time alone can tell whether they will work out the problem."

"They seem to blend different peoples. There is the Puritan in the East, who is allowing his prejudices to soften; there are the Dutch, about the towns on the Hudson, the Friends in Pennsylvania, the proud old cavaliers in Virginia and Carolina."

"And the Indians, who will ever hate them! The French settlements at the West, up and down the mighty river, who will never forget La Salle, Tonti, Cadillac, and the De Bienvilles. There's a big work yet to do."

"I think they will do it," returned St. Armand, his eyes kindling. "With such men as your brave, conciliatory General Wayne, a path is opened for a more reasonable agreement."

"You cannot trust the Indians. I think the French have understood them better, and made them more friendly. In many respects they are children, in others almost giants where they consider themselves wronged. And it is a nice question, how much rights they have in the soil."

"It has been a question since the world began. Were not the children of Israel commanded to drive the Canaanites out of their own land? Did not the Romans carry conquests all over Europe? And the Spaniard here, who has been driven out for his cruelty and rapacity. The world question is a great tree at which many nations have a hack, and some of them get only the unripe fruit as the branches fall. But the fruit matures slowly, and some one will gather it in the end, that is certain."

"But has not the Indian a right to his happiness, to his liberty?" said Laurent, rather mischievously. He had been chaffing with the girls, yet listening to the talk of the elders.

"In Indian ethics might makes right as elsewhere. They murder and destroy each other; some tribes have been almost wiped out and sold for slaves, as these Pawnee people. Depend upon it they will never take kindly to civilization. A few have intermarried, and though there is much romance about Rolfe and his Indian princess, St. Castin and his, they are more apt to affiliate with the Indians in the next generation."

"My young man who was so ready to fight was a half-breed, I heard," said Laurent. "His French father is quite an important fur trader, I learned. Yet the young fellow has been lounging round for the past three months, lying in the sun outside the stockade, flirting and making love alike to Indian and French maids, and haunting Jogue's place down on the river. Though, for that matter, it seems to be headquarters for fur traders. A handsome fellow, too. Why has he not the pride of the French?"

"Such marriages are a disgrace to the nation," said Madame Fleury, severely.

"And that recalls to my mind,--" St. Armand paused with a retrospective smile, thinking of the compliment his little friend had paid him,--"to inquire if you know anything about a child who lives not far from the lower citadel, in the care of an Indian woman. Her name is Jeanne Angelot."

The girls glanced at each other with a little curl of the lip as St. Armand's eyes wandered around.

"My father met her at the flag-raising and was charmed with her eyes and her ignorance," said Laurent, rather flippantly.

"If I were going to become a citizen of Detroit I should interest myself in this subject of education. It is sinful to allow so many young people to grow up in ignorance," declared the elder St. Armand.

"Most of our girls of the better class are sent to Montreal or Quebec," exclaimed Madame Fleury. "The English have governesses. And there is the Recollet school; there may be places outside the stockade."

Monsieur Fleury shook his head uncertainly. "Angelot, Angelot," he repeated. "I do not know the name."

"Father Gilbert or Father Rameau might know. Are these Angelots Catholics?"

"There is only one little girl."

"Oh!" a light broke over Madame's face. "I think I can recall an event. Husband, you know the little child the Bellestres had?"

"I do not remember," shaking his head.

"It was found queerly. They had a slave who became its nurse. The Bellestres were Huguenots, but Madame had a leaning toward the Church and the child was baptized. Madame Bellestre, who was a lovely woman, deferred to her husband until she was dying, when Father Rameau was sent for and she acknowledged that she died in the holy faith. There was some talk about the child, but M. Bellestre claimed it and cares for it. Under the English reign, you know, the good fathers had not so much authority."

"Where can I find this Father Rameau?"