The Honor of the Big Snows | Page 9

her back with her eyes fixed
upon him, her little red fists doubled over his bow, or a thumb thrust
into her mouth. And the longer she lay like this, gazing at him blankly,
the more convinced Jan became that she was understanding him; and
his voice grew soft and low, and his eyes shone with a soft mist as he
told her those things which John Cummins would have given much to
know.
"Some day you shall understand why it happened, sweet Mélisse," he
whispered, bringing his eyes so near that she reached up an inquiring
finger to them. "Then you will luf Jan Thoreau!"
There were other times when Jan did not talk, but when the baby
Mélisse talked to him; and these were moments of even greater joy.
With the baby wriggling and kicking, and making queer noises in her
tiny cot, he would sit silently upon his heels, watching her with the
pride and happiness of a mother lynx in the first tumbling frolics of her
kittens.
Once, when Mélisse straightened herself for an instant, and half
reached up her tiny arms to him, laughing and cooing into his face, he
gave a glad cry, crushed his face down to hers, and did what he had not
dared to do before--kissed her. There was something about it that
frightened the little Mélisse, and she set up a wailing that sent Jan, in a
panic of dismay, for Maballa. It was a long time before he ventured to
kiss her again.

It was during this fortnight of desolation at the post that Jan discovered
the big problem for himself and John Cummins. In the last days of the
second week, he spent much of his time skirting the edge of the barrens
in search of caribou, that there might be meat in plenty when the dogs
and men returned a little later. One afternoon, he returned early, while
the pale sun was still in the sky, laden with the meat of a musk-ox. As
he came from the edge of the forest, his slender body doubled over
under the weight of his pack, a terrifying sight greeted him in the little
clearing at the post.
Upon her knees in front of their cabin was Maballa, industriously
rolling the half-naked little Mélisse about in a soft pile of snow, and
doing her work, as she firmly believed, in a most faithful and thorough
manner. With a shriek, Jan threw off his pack and darted toward her
like a wild thing.
"Sacre bleu--you keel--keel ze leetle Mélisse!" he cried shrilly,
snatching up the half-frozen child, "Mon Dieu, she ees not papoose!
She ees ceevilize--ceevilize!" and he ran swiftly with her into the cabin,
flinging back a torrent of Cree anathema at the dumbly bewildered
Maballa.
Jan left the rest of his musk-ox to the wolves and foxes. He went out
into the snow, and found half a dozen other snow-wallows in which the
helpless Mélisse had taken her chilling baths. He watched Maballa with
a new growing terror, and fifty times a day he said to her:
"Mélisse ees not papoose! She ees ceevilize--lak HER!" And he would
point to the lonely grave under the guardian spruce.
At last Maballa went into an ecstasy of understanding. Mélisse was not
to be taken out and rolled in the snow; so she brought in the snow and
rolled it over Mélisse!
When Jan discovered this, his tongue twisted itself into sounds so
terrible, and his face writhed so fiercely, that Maballa began to
comprehend that thereafter no snow at all, either out doors or in, was to
be used in the physical development of the little Mélisse.

This was the beginning of the problem, and it grew and burst forth in
all its significance on the day before Cummins came in from the
wilderness.
For a week Maballa had been dropping sly hints of a wonderful thing
which she and the factor's half-breed wife were making for the baby.
Jan had visions of a gorgeous garment covered with beads and gaudy
braid, which would give the little Mélisse unending delight. On the day
before Cummins' arrival, Jan came in from chopping wood, and went to
the cot. It was empty. Maballa was gone. A sudden fear thrilled him to
the marrow, and he sprang back to the cabin door, ready to shriek out
the Indian woman's name.
A sound stopped him--the softest, sweetest sound in all the world to Jan
Thoreau--and he whirled around like a cat. Mélisse was smiling and
making queer, friendly little signals to him from the table. She was
standing upright, wedged in a coffin-shaped thing from which only her
tiny white face peered out at him; and Jan knew that this was Maballa's
surprise, Mélisse was in a