A Little Girl in Old Detroit | Page 8

a crowd as this will be. And I must set the house straight."
"But Marie De Ber and Pierre are to go. We planned it last night. Pierre is a big, strong boy, and he can pick his way through a crowd with his elbows. His mother says he always punches holes through his sleeves."
Jeanne laughed gayly. Pierre was a big, raw-boned fellow, a good guard anywhere.
"Nay, child, I shall go, too. It will not be long. And here is a choice bit of bread browned over the coals that you like so much, and the corn mush of last night fried to a turn."
"Let me run and see Marie a moment--"
"With that head looking as if thou hadst tumbled among the burrs, or some hen had scratched it up for a nest! And eyes full of dew webs that are spun in the grass by the spirits of night."
"Look, they are wide open!" She buried her face in a pail of water and splashed it around as a huge bird might, as she raised her beautiful laughing orbs, blue now as the midnight sky. And then she carelessly combed the tangled curls that fell about her like the spray of a waterfall.
"Thou must have a coif like other French girls, Jeanne. Berthê Campeau puts up her hair."
"Berthê goes to the Recollets and prays and counts beads, and will run no more or shout, and sings only dreary things that take the life and gayety out of you. She will go to Montreal, where her aunt is in a convent, and her mother cries about it. If I had a mother I would not want to make her cry. Pani, what do you suppose happened to my mother? Sometimes I think I can remember her a little."
The face so gay and willful a moment before was suddenly touched with a sweet and tender gravity.
"She is dead this long time, petite. Children may leave their mothers, but mothers never give up their children unless they are taken from them."
"Pani, what if the Indian woman had stolen me?"
"But she said you had no mother. Come, little one, and eat your breakfast."
Jeanne was such a creature of moods and changes that she forgot her errand to Marie. She clasped her hands together and murmured her French blessing in a soft, reverent tone.
Maize was a staple production in the new world, when the fields were not destroyed by marauding parties. There were windmills that ground it coarsely and both cakes and porridge were made of it. The Indian women cracked and pounded it in a stone mortar and boiled it with fish or venison. The French brought in many new ways of cooking.
"Oh, hear the bells and the music from the Fort! Come, hurry, Pani, if you are going with us. Pani, are people slow when they get old?"
"Much slower, little one."
"Then I don't want to be old. I want to run and jump and climb and swim. Marie knits, she has so many brothers and sisters. But I like leggings better in the winter. And they sew at the Recollet house."
"And thou must learn to sew, little one."
"Wait until I am big and old and have to sit in the chimney corner. There are no little ones--sometimes I am glad, sometimes sorry, but if they are not here one does not have to work for them."
She gave a bright laugh and was off like a flash. The Pani woman sighed. She wondered sometimes whether it would not have been better to give her up to the good father who took such an interest in her. But she was all the poor woman had to love. True she could be a servant in the house, but to have her wild, free darling bound down to rigid rules and made unhappy was more than she could stand. And had not Mr. Bellestre provided this home for them?
The woman had hardly put away the dishes, which were almost as much of an idol to her as the child, when Jeanne came flying back.
"Yes, hurry, hurry, Pani! They are all ready. And Madame De Ber said Marie should not go out on such a day unless you went too. She called me feather headed! As if I were an Indian chief with a great crown of feathers!"
The child laughed gayly. It was as natural to her as singing to a bird.
Pani gathered up a few last things and looked to see that the fire was put out.
Already the streets were being crowded and presented a picturesque aspect. Inside the stockade the chemin du ronde extended nearly around the town and this had been widened by the necessity of military operations. Soldiers were pouring out of the Citadel and the Fort but the colonial costume looked queer to eyes