Old Kaskaskia | Page 8

toward her. At that, she looked around for some place to hide in, the animal instinct of flight arising first, and darted from her brother into the graveyard. Rice beheld this freak with quizzical surprise, but he had noted the disappearance of more than one maid through that gate, and was glad to have Maria with them.
"Come on," whispered Peggy, seizing her. "Clarice Vigo has gone to fetch Ang��lique, and then we shall be ready."
Behind the church, speaking all together like a chorus of blackbirds, the girls were clustered, out of the bonfire's light. French and English voices debated.
"Oh, I wouldn't do such a thing."
"Your mother did it when she was a girl."
"But the young men may find it out and follow."
"Then we'll run."
"I'm afraid to go so far in the dark."
"What, to the old Jesuit College?"
"It isn't very dark, and our old Dinah will go with us; she's waiting outside the fence."
"But my father says none of our Indians are to be trusted in the dark."
"What a slander on our Indians!"
"But some of them are here; they always come to the St. John bonfire."
"All the men in Kaskaskia are here, too. We could easily give an alarm."
"Anyhow, nothing will hurt us."
"What are you going to do, girls?" inquired the voice of Ang��lique Saucier. The whole scheme took a foolish tinge as she spoke. They were ashamed to tell her what they were going to do.
Peggy Morrison drew near and whispered, "We want to go to the old Jesuit College and sow hempseed."
"Hempseed?"
"Yes. You do it on Midsummer Night."
"Will it grow the better for that?" asked the puzzled French girl.
"We don't want it to grow, you goose. We want to try our fortunes."
"It was Peggy Morrison's plan," spoke out Clarice Vigo.
"It's an old English custom," declared Peggy, "as old as burning brushwood."
"Would you like to observe this old English custom, Mademoiselle Zhone?" questioned Ang��lique.
"Yes, let us hurry on."
"I think myself it would be charming." The instant Ang��lique thought this, Peggy Morrison's plan lost foolishness, and gained in all eyes the dignity of adventure. "But we have no hempseed."
"Yes, we have," responded Peggy. "Our Dinah is there outside the fence with her lap full of it."
"And how do you sow it?"
"You scatter it and say, 'Hempseed, I sow thee,--hempseed, I sow thee; let him who is to marry me come after me and mow thee.'"
An abashed titter ran through girlish Kaskaskia.
"And what happens then?"
"Then you look back and see somebody following you with a scythe."
A suppressed squeal ran through girlish Kaskaskia.
"Now if we are going, we ought to go, or it will all be found out," observed Peggy with decision.
They had only to follow the nearest cross-street to reach the old Jesuit College; but some were for making a long detour into the common fields to avoid being seen, while others were for passing close by the bonfire in a solid squad. Neither Peggy nor Ang��lique could reconcile these factions, and Peggy finally crossed the fence and led the way in silence. The majority hung back until they were almost belated. Then, with a venturous rush, they scaled the fence and piled themselves upon Dinah, who was quietly trying to deal out a handful of hempseed to every passer; and some of them squalled in the fear of man at her uplifted paw. Then, shying away from the light, they entered a street which was like a canal of shadow. The houses bounding it were all dark, except the steep roof slopes of the southern row, which seemed to palpitate in the bonfire's flicker.
Finding themselves away from their families in this deserted lane, the girls took to their heels, and left like sheep a perceptible little cloud of dust smoking in the gloom behind them.
Beyond the last house and alongside the Okaw river stood the ruined building with gaping entrances. The girls stumbled among irregular hummocks which in earlier days had been garden beds and had supplied vegetables to the brethren. The last commandant of Kaskaskia, who occupied the Jesuits' house as a fortress, had complained to his superiors of a leaky and broken roof. There was now no roof to complain of, and the upper floors had given way in places, leaving the stone shell open to the sky. It had once been an imposing structure, costing the Jesuits forty thousand piasters. The uneven stone floor was also broken, showing gaps into vaults beneath; fearful spots to be avoided, which the custom of darkness soon revealed to all eyes. Partitions yet standing held stained and ghastly smears of rotted plaster.
The river's gurgle and rush could be distinctly heard here, while the company around the bonfire were lost in distance.
Ang��lique had given her arm to Maria Jones in the flight down the road; but when they entered the college Maria slipped