In the Valley | Page 7

This tiny girl blinked in the light thus suddenly surrounding her, and
looked about the room piteously, with her little lips trembling and her
eyes filled with tears. She was very small for her years, and had long,
tumbled hair. Her dress was a homespun frock in a single piece, and her
feet were wrapped for warmth in wool stockings of a grown woman's
measure. She looked about the room, I say, until she saw me. No doubt
my Dutch face was of the sort she was accustomed to, for she stretched

out her hands to me. Thereupon I went and took her in my arms, the
negro smiling upon us both.
I had thought to bear her to the fire-place, where Master Philip was
already toasting himself, standing between Mr. Stewart's knees, and
boldly spreading his hands over the heat. But when he espied me
bringing forward the child he darted to us and sharply bade me leave
the girl alone.
"Is she not to be warmed, then?" I asked, puzzled alike at his rude
behavior and at his words.
"I will do it myself," he answered shortly, and made to take the child.
He alarmed her with his imperious gesture, and she turned from him,
clinging to my neck. I was vexed now, and, much as I feared
discourtesy to one of Mr. Stewart's guests, felt like holding my own.
Keeping the little girl tight in my arms, I pushed past him toward the
fire. To my great wrath he began pulling at her shawl as I went,
shouting that he would have her, while to make matters worse the babe
herself set up a loud wail. Thus you may imagine I was in a fine state
of confusion and temper when I stood finally at the side of the hearth
and felt Mr. Stewart's eyes upon me. But I had the girl.
"What is the tumult?" he demanded, in a vexed tone. "What are you
doing, Douw, and what child is this?"
"It is my child, sir!" young Philip spoke up, panting from his exertions,
and red with color.
The two men broke out in loud laughter at this, so long sustained that
Philip himself joined it, and grinned reluctantly. I was too angry to
even feel relieved that the altercation was to have no serious
consequences for me--much less to laugh myself. I opened the shawl,
that the little one might feel the heat, and said nothing.
"Well, the lad is right, in a way," finally chuckled the Major. "It's as
much his child as it is anybody's this side of heaven."
The phrase checked his mirth, and he went on more seriously:
"She is the child of a young couple who had come to the Palatine
Village only a few weeks before. The man was a cooper or wheelwright,
one or the other, and his name was Peet or Peek, or some such Dutch
name. When Bellêtre fell upon the town at night, the man was killed in
the first attack. The woman with her child ran with the others to the
ford. There in the darkness and panic she was crushed under and

drowned; but strange enough--who can tell how these matters are
ordered?--the infant was in some way got across the river safe, and
fetched to the Fort. But there, so great is the throng, both of those who
escaped and those who now, alarmed for their lives, flock in from the
farms round about, that no one had time to care for a mere infant. Her
parents were new-comers, and had no friends. Besides, every one up
there is distracted with mourning or frantic with preparation for the
morrow. The child stood about among the cattle, trying to get warm in
the straw, when we came out last night to start. She looked so
beseechingly at us, and so like my own little Cordelia, by God! I
couldn't bear it! I cursed a trifle about their brutality, and one of 'em
offered at that to take her in; but my boy here said, 'Let's bring her with
us, father,' and up she came on to Bob's saddle, and off we started. At
Herkimer's I found blankets for her, and one of the girls gave us some
hose, big enough for Bob, which we bundled her in."
"There! said I not truly she was mine?" broke in the boy, shaking his
yellow hair proudly, and looking Mr. Stewart confidently in the eye.
"Rightly enough," replied Mr. Stewart, kindly. "And so you are my old
friend Anthony Cross's son, eh? A good, hearty lad, seeing the world
young. Can you realize easily, Master Philip, looking at us two old
people, that we were once as small as you, and played together then on
the Galway hills,