A Little Girl in Old Detroit | Page 2

the French had supposed they could reconquer, so the
English looked forward to repossession. But Detroit was still largely a
French town or settlement, for thus far it had been a military post of
importance.
So it might justly be called old this afternoon, as almost two centuries
had elapsed since the French had built their huts and made a point for
the fur trade, that Jeanne Angelot sat outside the palisade, leaning
against the Pani woman who for years had been a slave, from where
she did not know herself, except that she had been a child up in the fur
country. Madame De Longueil had gone back to France with her family
and left the Indian woman to shift for herself in freedom. And then had
come a new charge.
The morals of that day were not over-precise. But though the woman
had had a husband and two sons, one boy had died in childhood, the
other had been taken away by the husband who repudiated her. She was
the more ready to mother this child dropped mysteriously into her lap
one day by an Indian woman whose tongue she did not understand.
"Tell it over again," said Jeanne with an air of authority, a dainty
imperiousness.
She was leaning against one knee, the woman's heels being drawn up
close to her body, making a back to the seat of soft turf, and with her
small hand thumping the woman's brown one against the other knee.
"Mam'selle, you have heard it so many times you could tell it yourself

in the dark."
"But perhaps I could not tell it in the daylight," said the girl, with
mischievous laughter that sent musical ripples on the sunny air.
The woman looked amazed.
"Why should you be better able to do it at night?"
"O, you foolish Pani! Why, I might summon the itabolays--"
"Hush! hush! Do not call upon such things."
"And the shil loups, though they cannot talk. And the windigoes--"
"Mam'selle!" The Indian woman made as if she would rise in anger and
crossed herself.
"O, Pani, tell the story. Why, it was night you always say. And so I
ought to have some night-sight or knowledge. And you were feeling
lonely and miserable, and--why, how do you know it was not a
windigo?"
"Child! child! you set one crazy! It was flesh and blood, a squaw with a
blanket about her and a great bundle in her arms. And I did not go in
the palisade that night. I had come to love Madame and the children,
and it was hard to be shoved out homeless, and with no one to care.
There is fondness in the Indian blood, Mam'selle."
The Indian's voice grew forceful and held a certain dignity. The child
patted her hand and pressed it up to her cheek with a caressing touch.
"The De Bers wanted to buy me, but Madame said no. And Touchas,
the Outawa woman, had bidden me to her wigwam. I heard the bell ring
and the gates close, and I sat down under this very oak--"
"Yes, this is my tree!" interrupted the girl proudly.
"I thought it some poor soul who had lost her brave, and she came close

up to me, so close I heard the beads and shells on her leggings shake
with soft sound. But I could not understand what she said. And when I
would have risen she pushed me back with her knee and dropped
something heavy in my lap. I screamed, for I knew not what manner of
evil spirit it might be. But she pressed it down with her two hands, and
the child woke and cried, and reaching up flung its arms around my
neck, while the woman flitted swiftly away. And I tried to hush the
sobbing little thing, who almost strangled me with her soft arms."
"O Pani!" The girl sprang up and encircled her again.
"I felt bewitched. I did not know what to do, but the poor, trembling
little thing was alive, though I did not know whether you were human
or not, for there are strange shapes that come in the night, and when
once they fasten on you--"
"They never let go," Jeanne laughed gayly. "And I shall never let go of
you, Pani. If I had money I should buy you. Or if I were a man I would
get the priest to marry us."
"O Mam'selle, that is sinful! An old woman like me! And no one can be
bought to-day."
Jeanne gave her another hug. "And you sat here and held me--"
forwarding the story.
"I did not dare stir. It grew darker and all the air was sweet with falling
dews and the river fragrance, and the leaves rustled together, the