The Honor of the Big Snows | Page 8

whence he came.
In a way, he made up for her loss. The woman had brought something
new and sweet into their barren lives, and he brought something new
and sweet--the music of his violin. He played for them in the evening,
in the factor's office; and at these times they knew that Cummins' wife
was very near to them and that she was speaking to them through the
things which Jan Thoreau played.
Music had long passed out of their lives. Into some, indeed, it had
never come. Years ago, Williams had been at a post where there was an
accordion. Cummins had heard music when he went down to
civilization for his wife, more than two years ago. To the others it was
mystery which stirred them to the depths of their souls, and which
revealed to them many things that had long been hidden in the dust of
the past.
These were hours of triumph for Jan in the factor's office. Perched on a
box, with his back to the wall, his head thrown back, his black eyes
shining, his long hair giving to his face a half savage beauty, he was
more than king to the grim-visaged men about him. They listened,
movelessly, soundlessly; and when he stopped there was still neither
move nor sound until he had wrapped his violin in its bear-skin and had
returned to John Cummins and the little Mélisse. Jan understood the
silence, and took it for what it meant.
But it was the audience in the little cabin that Jan liked best, and, most
of all, he loved to have the little Mélisse alone. As the days of early
spring trapping approached, and the wilderness for a hundred miles
around the post was crisscrossed with the trails of the Cree and
Chippewayan fur-seekers, Cummins was absent for days at a time,
strengthening the company's friendships, and bargaining for the catch
that would be coming to market about eight weeks later.

This was a year of intense rivalry, for the Révillons, French
competitors of the company, had established a post two hundred miles
to the west, and rumor spread that they were to give sixty pounds of
flour to the company's forty, and four feet of cloth to the yard. This
meant action among Williams and his people, and the factor himself
plunged into the wilderness. Mukee, the half-Cree, went among his
scattered tribesmen along the edge of the barrens, stirring them by the
eloquence of new promises and by fierce condemnation of the
interlopers to the west. Old Per-ee, with a strain of Eskimo in him, went
boldly behind his dogs to meet the little black people from farther north,
who came down after foxes and half-starved polar bears that had been
carried beyond their own world on the ice-floes of the preceding spring.
Young Williams, the factor's son, followed after Cummins, and the rest
of the company's men went into the south and east.
The exodus left desolate lifelessness at the post. The windows of the
fireless cabins were thick with clinging frost. There was no movement
in the factor's office. The dogs were gone, and wolves and lynx sniffed
closer each night. In the oppression of this desertion, the few Indian
and half-breed children kept indoors, and Williams' Chippewayan wife,
fat and lazy, left the company's store securely locked.
In this silence and lifelessness Jan Thoreau felt a new and ever-
increasing happiness. To him the sound of life was a thing vibrant with
harshness; quiet--the dead, pulseless quiet of lifelessness--was beautiful.
He dreamed in it, and it was then that his fingers discovered new things
in his violin.
He often sent Maballa, the Indian woman who cared for Mélisse, to
gossip with Williams' wife, so that he was alone a great deal with the
baby. At these times, when the door was safely barred against the
outside world, it was a different Jan Thoreau who crouched upon his
knees beside the cot. His face was aflame with a great, absorbing
passion which at other times he concealed. His beautiful eyes glowed
with hidden fires, and he whispered soothing, singsong things to the
child, and played softly upon his violin, leaning his black head far
down so that the baby Mélisse could clutch her appreciative fingers in

his hair.
"Ah, ze sweet leetle white angel!" he would cry, as she tugged and
kicked. "I luf you so--I luf you, an' will stay always, ah' play ze violon!
Ah, mon Dieu, you will be ze gr-r-r-eat bea-utiful white angel
lak--HER!"
He would laugh and coo like a mother, and talk, for at these times Jan
Thoreau's tongue was as voluble as his violin.
Sometimes Mélisse listened as if she understood the wonderful things
he was telling her. She would lie upon