The Rose of Old St. Louis | Page 9

that I would never, to use her words, "sully my mouth" with
one. But often feeling the need of some more emphatic expressions
than our language provides except in the form of oaths, I had coined for
myself a small vocabulary to be used on occasions requiring great
emphasis. Since these words all began with a d, I had the satisfaction of
feeling that I was sufficiently emphatic without violating the respect
due my mother.
Whether it was the strangeness of the form of my imprecations or the
length of my adjective that scared Yorke, certain it is that he was
sobered at once, and with the solemnity of the Spanish don himself he
soon made the soldiers understand that they must put me down. Once
on my own feet, though I still felt a little shaky, I was able, by availing
myself of Yorke's arm, to climb the steep path leading up the bluff, and
soon found myself in the main street of the village, which the habitans
called the Rue Royale.
We had come out into a large square or marketplace, filled with the
throng of people I had seen at the landing and many more, so that, as
the people surged backward and forward to get a nearer view, the
whole open space looked like a great posy-bed of many-hued flowers
waving in a summer breeze. And if St. Louis had had a foreign look to
me when viewed from a distance, still more did I feel as if I were in a
strange town in a strange land as I heard the babble of strange tongues
about me and saw the picturesque costumes of the habitans, so unlike
anything I had ever seen in Philadelphia or Kentucky. Negroes were
chattering their queer creole patois, and Indians of many nations were
gathered into groups, some of them bedizened with the cheap finery of
the stores, some of them wearing only bright-hued blankets, but with
wonderful head-dresses of eagle feathers, and all of them looking
gravely on with a curiosity as silent as that of the habitans was noisy
and babbling. The presence of so many Indians and on such friendly

terms struck me as strange, for in Kentucky there were no such friendly
relations between Indians and whites, and the presence of so many of
them would have betokened danger and caused much uneasiness.
It thrilled me much that our coming should have made so great
excitement in the village, and doubtless my vanity would have taken
fire again if I had not known that it was my captain these people had
come to see, and not myself, of whom they had never heard. Even my
captain I knew must shine in a reflected glory, as the brother of General
George Rogers Clarke, whom the people of St. Louis worshiped as
their savior in the affair of 1780, when the Osages surprised the men at
work in the fields, and whom all the Indians of Illinois regarded with
fear and reverence as the great "Captain of the Long Knives." Yet I
could see that many of their curious glances fell on me also, and I let go
of Yorke's arm and walked steadily with my head in the air, as befitted
the friend of Captain Clarke.
We had stopped in front of a large stone building set inside a walled
inclosure. My captain, who was in advance with the governor and his
party, as he entered the inclosure turned and beckoned to Yorke and me
to follow him. The throng parted to let us through, and as we entered
the gates I saw that the governor had stopped on the wide gallery that
ran round the four sides of the building, and with a stately flourish was
bidding my captain welcome to Government House.
With Yorke close at my footsteps, I followed the governor's party
through a wide door into a great room that extended through the house
(as I could see by the open doors and windows at the rear), and that was
almost as wide as it was long, with doors opening into rooms on both
sides. Here I was presented to Governor Delassus, who received me
cordially, and who, with his dark eyes and punctilious manners, was
my idea of a Spanish don.
On either side of him stood two men who also greeted me cordially, but
without the punctiliousness of the Spaniard. They were the two
Chouteaus, Auguste and Jean Pierre. I had heard much of them, both in
Philadelphia and in Kentucky, and I found it difficult to conceal the
curiosity with which I regarded them. I had expected to find two rough

frontiersmen, somewhat after the manner of Daniel Boone or Simon
Kenyon, both of whom I had seen at General Clarke's; but