CHAPTER III.
"Wassamequin, Nashoonon, and Massaconomet did voluntarily submit themselves to the English, and promise to be willing from time to time to be instructed in the knowledge of God. Being asked not to do any unnecessary work on the Sabbath day, they answered, 'It is easy to them; they have not much to do on any day, and can well take rest on that day as any other.' So then we, causing them to understand the articles, and all the ten commandments of God, and they freely assenting to all, they were solemnly received; and the Court gave each of them a coat of two yards of cloth, and their dinner; and to them and their men, every one of them, a cup of sack at their departure. So they took leave, and went away."--_Massachusetts Colonial Records._
Dr. Gaston sat in his library, studying a chess problem. His clericalcoat was old and spotted, his table was of rough wood, the flooruncarpeted; by right, Poverty should have made herself prominent there.But she did not. Perhaps she liked the old chaplain, who showed a fine,amply built person under her reign, with florid complexion, bright blueeyes, and a curly brown wig--very different in aspect from her usuallean and dismal retinue; perhaps, also, she stopped here herself to warmher cold heart now and then in the hot, bright, crowded little room,which was hers by right, although she did not claim it, enjoying it,however, as a miserly money-lender enjoys the fine house over which heholds a mortgage, rubbing his hands exultingly, as, clad in his thin oldcoat, he walks by. Certainly the plastering had dropped from the wallshere and there; there was no furniture save the tables and shelves madeby the island carpenter, and one old leathern arm-chair, the parson'sown, a miracle of comfort, age, and hanging leather tatters. But on theshelves and on the tables, on the floor and on the broad window-sills,were books; they reached the ceiling on the shelves; they wainscoted thewalls to the height of several feet all round the room; small volumeswere piled on the narrow mantel as far up as they could go withouttoppling over, and the tables were loaded also. Aisles were kept openleading to the door, to the windows, and to the hearth, where the raggedarm-chair stood, and where there was a small parade-ground of openfloor; but everywhere else the printed thoughts held sway. The oldfire-place was large and deep, and here burned night and day, throughoutthe winter, a fire which made the whole room bright; add to this thesunshine streaming through the broad, low, uncurtained windows, and youhave the secret of the cheerfulness in the very face of a barren lack ofeverything we are accustomed to call comfort.
The Reverend James Gaston was an Englishman by birth. On coming toAmerica he had accepted a chaplaincy in the army, with the intention ofresigning it as soon as he had become sufficiently familiar with theways of the Church in this country to feel at ease in a parish. Butyears had passed, and he was a chaplain still; for evidently the countryparishes were not regulated according to his home ideas, the rector'sauthority--yes, even the tenure of his rectorship--being dependent uponthe chance wills and fancies of his people. Here was no dignity, no timefor pleasant classical studies, and no approval of them; on thecontrary, a continuous going out to tea, and a fear of offending, itmight be, a warden's wife, who very likely had been brought up aDissenter. The Reverend James Gaston therefore preferred the governmentfor a master.
Dr. Gaston held the office of post chaplain, having been, onapplication, selected by the council of administration. He had nomilitary rank, but as there happened to be quarters to spare, a cottagewas assigned to him, and as he had had the good fortune to be liked andrespected by all the officers who had succeeded each other on the littleisland, his position, unlike that of some of his brethren, wasendurable, and even comfortable. He had been a widower for many years;he had never cared to marry again, but had long ago recovered hischeerfulness, and had brought up, intellectually at least, two childrenwhom he loved as if they had been his own--the boy Erastus Pronando, andAnne Douglas. The children returned his affection heartily, and made agreat happiness in his lonely life. The girl was his good scholar, theboy his bad one; yet the teacher was severe with Anne, and indulgent tothe boy. If any one had asked the reason, perhaps he would have saidthat girls were docile by nature, whereas boys, having more temptations,required more lenity; or perhaps that girls who, owing to theconstitution of society, never advanced far in their studies, shouldhave all the incitement of severity while those studies lasted, whereasboys, who are to go abroad in the world and learn from life, need nosuch severity. But the real truth lay deeper than this, and the chaplainhimself was partly conscious of it; he felt that the foundations must belaid accurately and deeply in a nature like that possessed by this younggirl.
"Good-morning, uncle," said Anne, entering and putting down her Latinbooks (as children they had adopted the fashion of calling their teacher"uncle"). "Was your coffee good this morning?"
"Ah, well, so-so, child, so-so," replied the chaplain, hardly arousedyet from his problem.
"Then I must go out and speak to--to--what is this one's name, uncle?"
"Her name is--here, I have it written down--Mrs. Evelina Crangall," saidthe chaplain, reading aloud from his note-book, in a slow, sober voice.Evidently it was a matter of moment to him to keep that name well in hismind.
Public opinion required that Dr. Gaston should employ a Protestantservant; no one else was obliged to conform, but the congregation feltthat a stand must be made somewhere, and they made it, like a chalkline, at the parson's threshold. Now it was very well known that therewere no Protestants belonging to the class of servants on the island whocould cook at all, that talent being confined to the Frenchquarter-breeds and to occasional Irish soldiers' wives, none of themProtestants. The poor parson's cooking was passed from one incompetenthand to another--lake-sailors' wives, wandering emigrants, moneylessforlorn females left by steamers, belonging to that strange floatingpopulation that goes forever travelling up and down the land, withoutapparent motive save a vague El-Dorado hope whose very conception wouldbe impossible in any other country save this. Mrs. Evelina Crangall wasa hollow-chested woman with faded blue eyes, one prominent front tooth,scanty light hair, and for a form a lattice-work of bones. Shepreserved, however, a somewhat warlike aspect in her limp calico, andmaintained that she thoroughly understood the making of coffee, but thatshe was accustomed to the use of a French coffee-pot. Anne, answeringserenely that no French coffee-pot could be obtained in that kitchen,went to work and explained the whole process from the beginning, thewoman meanwhile surveying her with suspicion, which gradually gave waybefore the firm but pleasant manner. With a long list of kindredEvelinas, Anne had had dealings before. Sometimes her teachings effecteda change for the better, sometimes they did not, but in any case theEvelinas seldom remained long. They were wanderers by nature, and hadsudden desires to visit San Francisco, or to "go down the river toNewerleens." This morning, while making her explanation, Anne madecoffee too. It was a delicious cupful which she carried back with herinto the library, and the chaplain, far away in the chess country, camedown to earth immediately in order to drink it. Then they opened theLatin books, and Anne translated her page of Livy, her page of Cicero,and recited her rules correctly. She liked Latin; its exactness suitedher. Mrs. Bryden was wrong when she said that the girl studied Greek.Dr. Gaston had longed to teach her that golden tongue, but here WilliamDouglas had interfered. "Teach her Latin if you like, but not Greek," hesaid. "It would injure the child--make what is called a blue-stocking ofher, I suppose--and it is my duty to stand between her and injury."
"Ah! ah! you want to make a belle of her, do you?" said the cheerychaplain.
"AS SHE BENT OVER THE OLD VOLUME."]
"I said it was my duty; I did not say it was my wish," replied themoody father. "If I could have my wish, Anne should never know what alover is all her life long."
"What! you do not wish to have her marry, then? There are happymarriages. Come, Douglas, don't be morbid."
"I know what men are. And you and I are no better."
"But she may love."
"Ah! there it i
s; she may. And that is what I meant when I said that itwas my duty to keep her from making herself positively unattractive."
"Greek need not do that," said Dr. Gaston, shortly.
"It need not, but it does. Let me ask you one question: did you everfall in love, or come anywhere near falling in love, with a girl whounderstood Greek?"
"That is because only the homely ones take to it," replied the chaplain,fencing a little.
But Anne was not taught Greek. After Cicero she took up algebra, thenastronomy. After that she read aloud from a ponderous Shakspeare, andthe old man corrected her accentuation, and questioned her on themeanings. A number of the grand old plays the girl knew almost entirelyby heart; they had been her reading-books from childhood. Thedown-pouring light of the vivid morning sunshine and the up-coming whiteglare of the ice below met and shone full upon her face and figure asshe bent over the old volume laid open on the table before her, one handsupporting her brow, the other resting on the yellow page. Her handswere firm, white, and beautifully shaped--strong hands, generous hands,faithful hands; not the little, idle, characterless, faithless palms socommon in America, small, dainty, delicate, and shapeless, coming from acomposite origin. Her thick hair, brown as a mellowed chestnut, with agleam of dark red where the light touched it, like the red of Novemberoak leaves, was, as usual, in her way, the heavy braids breaking fromthe coil at the back of her head, one by one, as she read on through_Hamlet_. At last impatiently she drew out the comb, and they all felldown over her shoulders, and left her in momentary peace.
The lesson was nearly over when Rast Pronando appeared; he was to entercollege--a Western college on one of the lower lakes--early in thespring, and that prospect made the chaplain's lessons seem dull to him."Very likely they will not teach at all as he does; I shall do muchbetter if I go over the text-books by myself," he said, confidentially,to Anne. "I do not want to appear old-fashioned, you know."
"Is it unpleasant to be old-fashioned? I should think the old fashionswould be sure to be the good ones," said the girl. "But I do not wantyou to go so far beyond me, Rast; we have always been even until now.Will you think _me_ old-fashioned too when you come back?"
"Oh no; you will always be Anne. I can predict you exactly at twenty,and even thirty: there is no doubt about _you_."
"But shall I be old-fashioned?"
"Well, perhaps; but we don't mind it in women. All the goddesses wereold-fashioned, especially Diana. _You_ are Diana."
"Diana, a huntress. She loved Endymion, who was always asleep," saidAnne, quoting from her school-girl mythology.
This morning Rast had dropped in to read a little Greek with his oldmaster, and to walk home with Anne. The girl hurried through her_Hamlet_, and then yielded the place to him. It was a three-leggedstool, the only companion the arm-chair had, and it was the seat for thereciting scholar; the one who was studying sat in a niche on thewindow-seat at a little distance. Anne, retreating to this niche, beganto rebraid her hair.
"But she, within--within--singing with enchanting tone, enchantingvoice, wove with a--with a golden shuttle the sparkling web," read Rast,looking up and dreamily watching the brown strands taking their place inthe long braid. Anne saw his look, and hurried her weaving. The girl hadthought all her life that her hair was ugly because it was so heavy, andneither black nor gold in hue; and Rast, following her opinion, hadthought so too: she had told him it was, many a time. It wascharacteristic of her nature that while as a child she had admired hercompanion's spirited, handsome face and curling golden locks, she hadnever feared lest he might not return her affection because she happenedto be ugly; she drew no comparisons. But she had often discussed thesubject of beauty with him. "I should like to be beautiful," she said;"like that girl at the fort last summer."
"Pooh! it doesn't make much difference," answered Rast, magnanimously."I shall always like you."
"That is because you are so generous, dear."
"Perhaps it is," answered the boy.
This was two years before, when they were fourteen and fifteen yearsold; at sixteen and seventeen they had advanced but little in theirideas of life and of each other. Still, there was a slight change, forAnne now hurried the braiding; it hurt her a little that Rast shouldgaze so steadily at the rough, ugly hair.
When the Greek was finished they said good-by to the chaplain, and leftthe cottage together. As they crossed the inner parade-ground, takingthe snow path which led toward the entrance grating, and which was keptshovelled out by the soldiers, the snow walls on each side rising totheir chins, Rast suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, Annet, I have thought ofsomething! I am going to take you down the fort hill on a sled. Now youneed not object, because I shall do it in any case, although we _are_grown up, and I _am_ going to college. Probably it will be the lasttime. I shall borrow Bert Bryden's sled. Come along."
All the boy in him was awake; he seized Anne's wrist, and dragged herthrough first one cross-path, then another, until at last they reachedthe commandant's door. From the windows their heads had been visible,turning and crossing above the heaped-up snow. "Rast, and Anne Douglas,"said Mrs. Bryden, recognizing the girl's fur cap and the youth's goldenhair. She tapped on the window, and signed to them to enter withoutceremony. "What is it, Rast? Good-morning, Anne; what a color you have,child!"
"Rast has been making me run," said Anne, smiling, and coming towardthe hearth, where the fort ladies were sitting together sewing, andrather lugubriously recalling Christmas times in their old Easternhomes.
"Throw off your cloak," said Mrs. Cromer, "else you will take cold whenyou go out again."
"We shall only stay a moment," answered Anne.
The cloak was of strong dark blue woollen cloth, closely fitted to thefigure, with a small cape; it reached from her throat to her ankles, andwas met and completed by fur boots, fur gloves, and a little fur cap.The rough plain costume was becoming to the vigorous girl. "It tones herdown," thought the lieutenant's wife; "she really looks quite well."
In the mean while Rast had gone across to the dining-room to find BertBryden, the commandant's son, and borrow his sled.
"And you're really going to take Miss Douglas down the hill!" said theboy. "Hurrah! I'll look out of the side window and see. What fun! Such abig girl to go sliding!"
Anne was a big girl to go; but Rast was not to be withstood. She wouldnot get on the sled at the door, as he wished, but followed him outthrough the sally-port, and round to the top of the long steep forthill, whose snowy slippery road-track was hardly used at all during thewinter, save by coasters, and those few in number, for the village boys,French and half-breeds, did not view the snow as an amusement, ortoiling up hill as a recreation. The two little boys at the fort, andwhat Scotch and New England blood there was in the town, held a monopolyof the coasting.
"There they go!" cried Bert, from his perch on the deep window-seatoverlooking the frozen Straits and the village below. "Mamma, you mustlet me take you down now; you are not so big as Miss Douglas."
Mrs. Bryden, a slender little woman, laughed. "Fancy the colonel'shorror," she said, "if he should see me sliding down that hill! And yetit looks as if it might be rather stirring," she added, watching theflying sled and its load. The sled, of island manufacture, was largeand sledge-like; it carried two comfortably. Anne held on by Rast'sshoulders, sitting behind him, while he guided the flying craft. Downthey glided, darted, faster and faster, losing all sense of everythingafter a while save speed. Reaching the village street at last, they flewacross it, and out on the icy pier beyond, where Rast by a skillfulmanoeuvre stopped the sled on the very verge. The fort ladies were all atthe windows now, watching.
"How dangerous!" said Mrs. Bryden, forgetting her admiration of a momentbefore with a mother's irrelevant rapidity. "Albert, let me never see orhear of your sliding on that pier; another inch, and they would havegone over, down on the broken ice below!"
"I couldn't do it, mamma, even if I tried," replied Master Albert,regretfully; "I always tumble off the sled at th
e street, or else runinto one of the warehouses. Only Rast Pronando can steer acrossslanting, and out on that pier."
"I am very glad to hear it," replied Mrs. Bryden; "but your father mustalso give you his positive commands on the subject. I had no idea thatthe pier was ever attempted."
"And it is not, mamma, except by Rast," said the boy. "Can't I try itwhen I am as old as he is?"
"Hear the child!" said Mrs. Cromer, going back to her seat by the fire;"one would suppose he expected to stay here all his life. Do you notknow, Bert, that we are only here for a little while--a year or two?Before you are eighteen months older very likely you will find yourselfout on the plains. What a life it is!"
The fort ladies all sighed. It was a habit they had. They drew thedreariest pictures of their surroundings and privations in their lettershomeward, and really believed them, theoretically. In truth, there weresome privations; but would any one of them have exchanged army life forcivilian? To the last, thorough army ladies retain their ways; yourecognize them even when retired to private and perhaps more prosperouslife. Cosmopolitans, they do not sink into the ruts of small-town life;they are never provincial. They take the world easily, having apleasant, generous taste for its pleasures, and making light of theburdens that fall to their share. All little local rules and ways arenothing to them: neither here nor anywhere are they to remain long. Withthis habit and manner they keep up a vast amount of generalcheeriness--vast indeed, when one considers how small the incomessometimes are. But if small, they are also sure.
"Rast Pronando is too old for such frolics, I think," said Mrs. Rankin,the lieutenant's wife, beginning another seam in the new dress for herbaby.
"He goes to college in the spring; that will quiet him," said Mrs.Bryden.
"What will he do afterward? Is he to live here? At this end of theworld--this jumping-off place?"
"I suppose so; he has always lived here. But he belongs, you know, tothe old Philadelphia family of the same name, the Peter Pronandos."
"Does he? How strange! How did he come here?"
"He was born here: Dr. Gaston told me his history. It seems that theboy's father was a wild younger son of the second Peter, grandson, ofcourse, of the original Peter, from whom the family derive all theirgreatness--_and_ money. This Peter the third, only his name was notPeter, but John (the eldest sons were the Peters), wandered away fromhome, and came up here, where his father's name was well known among thedirectors of the Fur Company. John Pronando, who must have been of verydifferent fibre from the rest of the family, liked the wild life of theborder, and even went off on one or two long expeditions to the RedRiver of the North and the Upper Missouri after furs with the hunters ofthe Company. His father then offered him a position here which wouldcarry with it authority, but he curtly refused, saying that he had notaste for a desk and pen like Peter. Peter was his brother, who hadbegun dutifully at an early age his life-long task of taking care of thelarge accumulation of land which makes the family so rich. Peter was thegood boy always. Father Peter was naturally angry with John, andinclined even then to cross his name off the family list of heirs; this,however, was not really done until the prodigal crowned his long courseof misdeeds by marrying the pretty daughter of a Scotchman, who held oneof the smaller clerkships in the Company's warehouses here--only a gradeabove the hunters themselves. This was the end. Almost anything elsemight have been forgiven save a marriage of that kind. If John Pronandohad selected the daughter of a flat-boat man on the Ohio River, or of aPennsylvania mountain wagoner, they might have accepted her--at adistance--and made the best of her. But a person from the rank and fileof their own Fur Company--it was as though a colonel should marry thedaughter of a common soldier in his own regiment: yes, worse, fornothing can equal the Pronando pride. From that day John Pronando wassimply forgotten--so they said. His mother was dead, so it may have beentrue. A small sum was settled upon him, and a will was carefully drawnup forever excluding him and the heirs he might have from any share inthe estate. John did not appear to mind this, but lived on merrilyenough for some years afterward, until his sweet little wife died; thenhe seemed to lose his strength suddenly, and soon followed her, leavingthis one boy, Erastus, named after the maternal grandfather, with hisusual careless disregard of what would be for his advantage. The boy hasbeen brought up by our good chaplain, although he lives with a familydown in the village; the doctor has husbanded what money there wascarefully, and there is enough to send him through college, and to starthim in life in some way. A good education he considered the bestinvestment of all."
"In a fresh-water college?" said Mrs. Cromer, raising her eyebrows.
"Why not, for a fresh-water boy? He will always live in the West."
"He is so handsome," said Mrs. Rankin, "that he might go Eastward,captivate his relatives, and win his way back into the family again."
"He does not know anything about his family," said the colonel's wife.
"Then some one ought to tell him."
"Why? Simply for the money? No: let him lead his own life out here, andmake his own way," said Mrs. Bryden, warmly.
"What a radical you are, Jane!"
"No, not a radical; but I have seen two or three of the youngerPronandos, of the fourth generation, I mean, and whenever I think oftheir dead eyes, and lifeless, weary manner, I feel like doing what Ican to keep Rast away from them."
"But the boy must live his life, Jane. These very Pronandos whom youdescribe will probably be sober and staid at fifty: the Pronandos alwaysare. And Rast, after all, is one of them."
"But not like them. _He_ would go to ruin, he has so much moreimagination than they have."
"And less stability?"
"Well, no; less epicureanism, perhaps. It is the solid good things oflife that bring the Pronandos back, after they have indulged in youthfulwildness: they have no taste for husks."
Then the colonel came in, and, soon after, the sewing circle broke up,Mrs. Cromer and Mrs. Rankin returning to their quarters in the othercottages through the walled snow-paths. The little fort was perched onthe brow of the cliff, overlooking the village and harbor; the windowsof the stone cottages which formed the officers' quarters commanded anuninterrupted view of blue water in summer, and white ice fields inwinter, as far as the eye could reach. It could hardly have withstood abombardment; its walls and block-houses, erected as a defense againstthe Indians, required constant propping and new foundation-work to keepthem within the requirements of safety, not to speak of militarydignity. But the soldiers had nothing else to do, and, on the whole, thefort looked well, especially from the water, crowning the green heightwith buttressed majesty. During eight months of the year the officersplayed chess and checkers, and the men played fox-and-geese. Theremaining four months, which comprised all there was of spring, summer,and autumn, were filled full of out-door work and enjoyment; summervisitors came, and the United States uniform took its conquering place,as usual, among the dancers, at the picnics, and on the fast-sailingfishing-boats which did duty as yachts, skimming over the clear water inwhose depths fish could be seen swimming forty feet below. These samefish were caught and eaten--the large lake trout, and the delicatewhite-fish, aristocrat of the freshwater seas; three-quarters of thepopulation were fishermen, and the whole town drew its food from thedeep. The business had broadened, too, as the Prairie States became morethickly settled, namely, the salting and packing for sale of thesefresh-water fish. Barrels stood on the piers, and brisk agents, withpencils behind their ears, stirred the slow-moving villagers intoactivity, as the man with a pole stirs up the bears. Fur-bearing animalshad had their day; it was now the turn of the creatures of the deep.
"Let us stop at the church-house a moment and see Miss Lois," said Rast,as, dragging the empty sled behind him, he walked by Anne's side throughthe village street toward the Agency.
"I am afraid I have not time, Rast."
"Make it, then. Come, Annet, don't be ill-natured. And, besides, youought to see that I go there, for I have not called upo
n Miss Lois thisyear."
"As this year only began last week, you are not so very far behind,"said the girl, smiling. "Why can you not go and see Miss Lois alone?"
"I should be welcome, at any rate; _she_ adores me."
"Does she, indeed!"
"Yes, Miss Douglas, she does. She pretends otherwise, but that is alwaysthe way with women. Oh! I know the world."
"You are only one year older than I am."
"In actual time, perhaps; but twenty years older in knowledge."
"What will you be, then, when you come back from college? An old man?"
"By no means; for _I_ shall stay where I am. But in the mean time youwill catch up with me."
Handsome Rast had passed through his novitiate, so he thought. Hisknowledge of the world was derived partly from Lieutenant Walters, who,although fresh from West Point, was still several years older than youngPronando, and patronized him accordingly, and partly from a slender,low-voiced Miss Carew, who was thirty, but appeared twenty, after themanner of slender yellow-white blondes who have never possessed anyrose-tints, having always been willowy and amber-colored. Miss Carewsailed, for a summer's amusement through the Great Lakes of the West;and then returned Eastward with the opinion that they were but so manyraw, blank, inland oceans, without sensations or local coloring enoughto rouse her. The week on the island, which was an epoch in Rast's life,had held for her but languid interest; yet even the languid work of amaster-hand has finish and power, and Rast was melancholy and silent forfifteen days after the enchantress had departed. Then he wrote to herone or two wild letters, and received no answer; then he grew bitter.Then Walters came, with his cadet's deep experience in life, and theyouth learned from him, and re-appeared on the surface again with atinge of cynicism which filled Anne with wonder. For he had never toldher the story of the summer; it was almost the only event in his lifewhich she had not shared. But it was not that he feared to tell her,they were as frank with each other as two children; it was because hethought she would not understand it.
"I do not like Mr. Walters," she said, one day.
"He was very much liked at the Point, I assure you," said Rast, withsignificant emphasis. "By the ladies, I mean, who come there in thesummer."
"How could they like him, with that important, egotistical air?"
"But it is to conquer him they like," said Tita, looking up from hercorner.
"Hear the child!" said Rast, laughing. "Are _you_ going to conquer,Tita?"
"Yes," said Tita, stroking the cat which shared the corner with her--asoft coated yellow pussy that was generally sleepy and quiet, but whichhad, nevertheless, at times, extraordinary fits of galloping round in acircle, and tearing the bark from the trees as though she waspossessed--an eccentricity of character which the boys attributed to thedirect influence of Satan.
Miss Lois lived in the church-house. It was an ugly house; but then, asis often said of a plain woman, "so good!" It did not leak or rattle, orfall down or smoke, or lean or sag, as did most of the other houses inthe village, in regard to their shingles, their shutters, theirchimneys, their side walls, and their roof-trees. It stood straightlyand squarely on its stone foundation, and every board, nail and latchwas in its proper position. Years before, missionaries had been sentfrom New England to work among the Indians of this neighborhood, who hadobtained their ideas of Christianity, up to that time, solely from theRoman Catholic priests, who had succeeded each other in an unbroken linefrom that adventurous Jesuit, the first explorer of these inland seas,Father Marquette. The Presbyterians came, established their mission,built a meeting-house, a school-house, and a house for their pastor, thebuildings being as solid as their belief. Money was collected for thisenterprise from all over New England, that old-time, devout,self-sacrificing community whose sternness and faith were equal; tallspare men came westward to teach the Indians, earnest women with brightsteadfast eyes and lath-like forms were their aiders, wives, andcompanions. Among these came Miss Lois--then young LoisHinsdale--carried Westward by an aunt whose missionary zeal was burningsplendidly up an empty chimney which might have been filled with familyloves and cares, but was not: shall we say better filled? Themissionaries worked faithfully; but, as the Indians soon moved furtherwestward, the results of their efforts can not be statisticallyestimated now, or the accounts balanced.
"The only good Indian is a dead Indian," is a remark that crystallizesthe floating opinion of the border. But a border population has not amissionary spirit. New England, having long ago chased out, shot down,and exterminated all her own Indians, had become peaceful and pious, anddid not agree with these Western carriers of shot-guns. Still, whenthere were no more Indians to come to this island school, it was ofnecessity closed, no matter which side was right. There were stillnumbers of Chippewas living on the other islands and on the mainland;but they belonged to the Roman Catholic faith, and were under thecontrol of Pere Michaux.
The Protestant church--a square New England meeting-house, with steepleand bell--was kept open during another year; but the congregation grewso small that at last knowledge of the true state of affairs reached theNew England purses, and it was decided that the minister in chargeshould close this mission, and go southward to a more promising fieldamong the prairie settlers of Illinois. All the teachers connected withthe Indian school had departed before this--all save Miss Lois and heraunt; for Priscilla Hinsdale, stricken down by her own intense energy,which had consumed her as an inward fire, was now confined to her bed,partially paralyzed. The New England woman had sold her farm, and putalmost all her little store of money into island property. "I shall liveand die here," she had said; "I have found my life-work." But her workwent away from her; her class of promising squaws departed with theirpappooses and their braves, and left her scholarless.
"With all the blessed religious privileges they have here, besides otheradvantages, I can not at all understand it--I can not understand it,"she repeated many times, especially to Sandy Forbes, an old Scotchmanand fervent singer of psalms.
"Aweel, aweel, Miss Priscilla, I donnot suppose ye can," replied Sandy,with a momentary twinkle in his old eyes.
While still hesitating over her future course, illness struck down theold maid, and her life-work was at last decided for her: it was merelyto lie in bed, motionless, winter and summer, with folded hands andwhatever resignation she was able to muster. Niece Lois, hitherto asatellite, now assumed the leadership. This would seem a simple enoughcharge, the household of two women, poor in purse, in a remote villageon a Northern frontier. But exotics of any kind require nursing andvigilance, and the Hinsdale household was an exotic. Miss Priscillarequired that every collar should be starched in the New Englandfashion, that every curtain should fall in New England folds, that everydish on the table should be of New England origin, and that every clockshould tick with New England accuracy. Lois had known no other training;and remembering as she did also the ways of the old home among the NewHampshire hills with a child's fidelity and affection, she went evenbeyond her aunt in faithfulness to her ideal; and although the elderwoman had long been dead, the niece never varied the habits or alteredthe rules of the house which was now hers alone.
"A little New England homestead strangely set up here on this farWestern island," William Douglas had said.
The church house, as the villagers named it, was built by thePresbyterian missionaries, many of them laboring with their own hands atthe good work, seeing, no doubt, files of Indian converts rising up inanother world to call them blessed. When it came into the hands of MissPriscilla, it came, therefore, ready-made as to New England ideas ofrooms and closets, and only required a new application of white andgreen paint to become for her an appropriate and rectangular bower. Itstood near the closed meeting-house, whose steeple threw a slow-movingshadow across its garden, like a great sun-dial, all day. Miss Lois hadcharge of the key of the meeting-house, and often she unlocked its door,went in, and walked up and down the aisle, as if to revive the memoriesof the past. She remembere
d the faith and sure hope that used to fillthe empty spaces, and shook her head and sighed. Then she upbraidedherself for sighing, and sang in her thin husky voice softly a verse ortwo of one of their old psalms by way of reparation. She sent an annualreport of the condition of the building to the Presbyterian Board ofMissions, but in it said nothing of the small repairs for which her ownpurse paid. Was it a silent way of making amends to the old walls forhaving deserted their tenets?
"Cod-fish balls for breakfast on Sunday morning, of course," said MissLois, "and fried hasty-pudding. On Wednesdays a boiled dinner. Pies onTuesdays and Saturdays."
The pins stood in straight rows on her pincushion; three times each weekevery room in the house was swept, and the floors as well as thefurniture dusted. Beans were baked in an earthen pot on Saturday night,and sweet-cake was made on Thursday. Rast Pronando often dropped in totea on Thursday. Winter or summer, through scarcity or plenty, Miss Loisnever varied her established routine, thereby setting an example, shesaid, to the idle and shiftless. And certainly she was a faithfulguide-post, continually pointing out an industrious and systematic way,which, however, to the end of time, no French-blooded, French-heartedperson will ever travel, unless dragged by force. The villagerspreferred their lake trout to Miss Lois's salt cod-fish, their savorystews and soups to her corned beef, their tartines to her corn-mealpuddings, and their eau-de-vie to her green tea; they loved theirdisorder and their comfort; her bar soap and scrubbing-brush were ahorror to their eyes. They washed the household clothes two or threetimes a year: was not that enough? Of what use the endless labor of thissharp-nosed woman with glasses over her eyes at the church-house? Werenot, perhaps, the glasses the consequences of such toil? And her figureof a long leanness also?
The element of real heroism, however, came into Miss Lois's life in herpersistent effort to employ Indian servants. The old mission had beenestablished for their conversion and education; any descendant of thatmission, therefore, should continue to the utmost of her ability thebeneficent work. The meeting-house was closed, the school-houseabandoned, she could reach the native race by no other influence savepersonal; that personal influence, then, she would use. Through longyears had she persisted, through long years would she continue topersist. A succession of Chippewa squaws broke, stole, and skirmishedtheir way through her kitchen with various degrees of success, generallyin the end departing suddenly at night with whatever booty they couldlay their hands on. It is but justice to add, however, that this was notmuch, a rigid system of keys and excellent locks prevailing in thewell-watched household. Miss Lois's conscience would not allow her toemploy half-breeds, who were sometimes endurable servants; dutyrequired, she said, that she should have full-blooded natives. And shehad them. She always began to teach them the alphabet within three daysafter their arrival, and the spectacle of a tearful, freshly caughtIndian girl, very wretched in her calico dress and white apron, worn outwith the ways of the kettles and brasses, dejected over the fish-balls,and appalled by the pudding, standing confronted by a large alphabet onthe well-scoured table, and Miss Lois by her side with a pointer, wasfrequent and even regular in its occurrence, the only change being inthe personality of the learners. No one of them had ever gone throughthe letters; but Miss Lois was not discouraged. Patiently she began overagain--she was always beginning over again. And in the mean time she wasoften obliged not only to do almost all the household work with her ownhands, but to do it twice over in order to instruct the new-comer. Bythe unwritten law of public opinion, Dr. Gaston was obliged to employonly Protestant servants; by the unwritten law of her own conscience,Miss Lois was obliged to employ only Indians. But in truth she did notemploy them so much as they employed her.
Miss Lois received her young friends in the sitting-room. There was aparlor with Brussels carpet and hair-cloth sofa across the hall, but itsblinds were closed, and its shades drawn down. The parlor ofmiddle-class households in the cold climate of the Northern Statesgenerally is a consecrated apartment, with the chill atmosphere and muchof the solemnity of a tomb. It may be called the high altar of thecareful housewife; but even here her sense of cleanliness and dustlessperfection is such that she keeps it cold. No sacred fire burns, nocheerful ministry is allowed; everything is silent and veiled. Theapartment is of no earthly use--nor heavenly, save perhaps for ghosts.But take it away, and the housewife is miserable; leave it, and shelives on contentedly in her sitting-room all the year round, knowing itis _there_.
Miss Lois's sitting-room was cheery; it had a rag-carpet, a bright fire,and double-glass panes instead of the heavy woollen curtains which thevillagers hung over their windows in the winter--curtains that kept outthe cold, but also the light. Miss Lois's curtains were of white dimitywith knotted fringe, and her walls were freshly whitewashed. Her framedsampler, and a memorial picture done with pen and ink, representing twoweeping-willows overshadowing a tombstone, ornamented the highmantel-piece, and there were also two gayly colored china jars filledwith dried rose-leaves. They were only wild-brier roses; the real roses,as she called them, grew but reluctantly in this Northern air. Miss Loisnever loved the wild ones as she had loved the old-fashionedcinnamon-scented pink and damask roses of her youth, but she gatheredand dried these leaves of the brier from habit. There was also hangingon the wall a looking-glass tilted forward at such an angle that thelooker-in could see only his feet, with a steep ascent of carpet goingup hill behind him. This looking-glass possessed a brightly hued pictureat the top, divided into two compartments, on one side a lovely ladywith a large bonnet modestly concealing her face, very bare shoulders,leg-of-mutton sleeves, and a bag hanging on her arm; on the other oldFather Time, scythe in hand, as if he was intended as a warning to thelovely lady that minutes were rapid and his stroke sure.
"Why do you keep your glass tilted forward so far that we can not lookin it, Miss Lois?" Rast had once asked.
Miss Lois did it from habit. But she answered: "To keep silly girls fromlooking at themselves while they are pretending to talk to me. They saysomething, and then raise their eyes quickly to see how they lookedwhen they said it. I have known them keep a smile or a particularexpression half a minute while they studied the effect--ridiculouscalves!"
"Calves have lovely eyes sometimes," said Rast.
"Did I say the girls were ugly, Master Pert? But the homely girls looktoo."
"Perhaps to see how they can improve themselves."
"Perhaps," said the old maid, dryly. "Pity they never learn!"
In the sitting-room was a high chest of drawers, an old clock, achintz-covered settle, and two deep narrow old rocking-chairs, intendedevidently for scant skirts; on an especial table was the family Bible,containing the record of the Hinsdale family from the date of thearrival of the _Mayflower_. Miss Lois's prayer-book was not there; itwas up stairs in a bureau drawer. It did not seem to belong to theold-time furniture of the rooms below, nor to the Hinsdale Bible.
The story of Miss Lois's change from the Puritan to the Episcopal ritualmight to-day fill a volume if written by one of those brooding,self-searching woman-minds of New England--those unconscious, earnestegotists who bring forth poetry beautiful sometimes to inspiration, butalways purely subjective. And if in such a volume the feelings, thearguments, and the change were all represented as sincere,conscientious, and prayerful, they would be represented with entiretruth. Nevertheless, so complex are the influences which move our lives,and so deep the under-powers which we ourselves may not alwaysrecognize, that it could be safely added by a man of the world as acomment that Lois Hinsdale would never have felt these changes, thesedoubts, these conflicts, if William Douglas had not been of anothercreed. For in those days Douglas had a creed--the creed of his youngbride.
"Miss Hinsdale, we have come to offer you our New-Year's good wishes,"said Rast, taking off his cap and making a ceremonious bow. "Ourequipage will wait outside. How charming is your apartment, madam! Andyourself--how Minerva-like the gleam of the eye, the motion of the hand,which--"
"Which made
the pies now cooling in the pantry, Rast Pronando, to whosefragrance, I presume, I owe the honor of this visit."
"Not for myself, dear madam, but for Anne. She has already confided tome that she feels a certain sinking sensation that absolutely requiresthe strengthening influence of pie."
Anne laughed. "Are you going to stay long?" she asked, still standing atthe doorway.
"Certainly," replied Rast, seating himself in one of the narrowrocking-chairs; "I have a number of subjects to discuss with our dearMiss Lois."
"Then I will leave you here, for Tita is waiting for me. I have promisedto take them all over to Pere Michaux's house this afternoon."
Miss Lois groaned--two short abrupt groans on different keys.
"Have you? Then I'm going too," said Rast, rising.
"Oh no, Rast; please do not," said the girl, earnestly. "When you go, itis quite a different thing--a frolic always."
"And why not?" said Rast.
"Because the children go for religious instruction, as you well know; itis their faith, and I feel that I ought to give them such opportunitiesas I can to learn what it means."
"It means mummery!" said Miss Lois, loudly and sternly.
Anne glanced toward her old friend, but stood her ground firmly. "I musttake them," she said; "I promised I would do so as long as they werechildren, and under my care. When they are older they can choose forthemselves."
"To whom did you make that promise, Anne Douglas?"
"To Pere Michaux."
"And you call yourself a Protestant!"
"Yes; but I hope to keep a promise too, dear Miss Lois."
"Why was it ever made?"
"Pere Michaux required it, and--father allowed it."
Miss Lois rubbed her forehead, settled her spectacles with her first andthird fingers, shook her head briskly once or twice to see if they werefirmly in place, and then went on with her knitting. What WilliamDouglas allowed, how could she disallow?
Rast, standing by Anne's side putting on his fur gloves, showed nodisposition to yield.
"Please do not come, Rast," said the girl again, laying her hand on hisarm.
"I shall go to take care of you."
"It is not necessary; we have old Antoine and his dogs, and the boys areto have a sled of their own. We shall be at home before dark, I think,and if not, the moon to-night is full."
"But I shall go," said Rast.
"Nonsense!" said Miss Lois. "Of course you will not go; Anne is right.You romp and make mischief with those children always. Behave now, andyou shall come back this evening, and Anne shall come too, and we willhave apples and nuts and gingerbread, and Anne shall recite."
"Will you, Annet? I will yield if you promise."
"If I must, I must," said Anne, reluctantly.
"Go, then, proud maid; speed upon your errand. And in the mean time,Miss Lois, something fragrant and spicy in the way of a reward _now_would not come amiss, and then some music."
Among the possessions which Miss Lois had inherited from her aunt was asmall piano. The elder Miss Hinsdale, sent into the world with an almostItalian love of music, found herself unable to repress it even in coldNew England; turning it, therefore, into the channel of the few stuntedpsalms and hymns and spiritual songs of the day, she indulged it in acramped fashion, like a full-flowing stream shut off and made to turn amill. When the missionary spirit seized her in its fiery whirlwind, shebargained with it mentally that her piano should be included; sherepresented to the doubting elder that it would be an instrument ofgreat power among the savages, and that even David himself accompaniedthe psalms with a well-stringed harp. The elder still doubted; he likeda tuning-fork; and besides, the money which Miss Priscilla would pay forthe transportation of "the instrument" was greatly needed for boots forthe young men. But as Miss Priscilla was a free agent, and quitedetermined, he finally decided, like many another leader, to allow whathe could not prevent, and the piano came. It was a small, old-fashionedinstrument, which had been kept in tune by Dr. Douglas, and through longyears the inner life of Miss Lois, her hopes, aspirations, anddisappointments, had found expression through its keys. It was a curioussight to see the old maid sitting at her piano alone on a stormyevening, the doors all closed, the shutters locked, no one stirring inthe church-house save herself. Her playing was old-fashioned, her handsstiff; she could not improvise, and the range of the music she knew wassmall and narrow, yet unconsciously it served to her all the purposes ofemotional expression. When she was sad, she played "China"; when she washopeful, "Coronation." She made the bass heavy in dejection, and playedthe air in octaves when cheerful. She played only when she was entirelyalone. The old piano was the only confidant of the hidden remains ofyouthful feeling buried in her heart.
LOIS HINSDALE.]
Rast played on the piano and the violin in an untrained fashion of hisown, and Anne sang; they often had small concerts in Miss Lois's parlor.But a greater entertainment lay in Anne's recitations. These were allfrom Shakspeare. Not in vain had the chaplain kept her tied to its pagesyear after year; she had learned, almost unconsciously, as it were,large portions of the immortal text by heart, and had formed her ownideals of the characters, who were to her real persons, although asdifferent from flesh-and-blood people as are the phantoms of a dream.They were like spirits who came at her call, and lent her theirpersonality; she could identify herself with them for the time being socompletely, throw herself into the bodies and minds she hadconstructed for them so entirely, that the effect was startling, and allthe more so because her conceptions of the characters were girlish andutterly different from those that have ruled the dramatic stage forgenerations. Her ideas of Juliet, of Ophelia, of Rosalind, and Cleopatrawere her own, and she never varied them; the very earnestness of herpersonations made the effect all the more extraordinary. Dr. Gaston hadnever heard these recitations of his pupil; William Douglas had neverheard them; either of these men could have corrected her errors andexplained to her her mistakes. She herself thought them too trifling fortheir notice; it was only a way she had of amusing herself. Even Rast,her playmate, found it out by chance, coming upon her among the cedarsone day when she was Ophelia, and overhearing her speak several linesbefore she saw him; he immediately constituted himself an audience ofone, with, however, the peremptory manners of a throng, and demanded tohear all she knew. Poor Anne! the great plays of the world had been herfairy tales; she knew no others. She went through her personationstimidly, the wild forest her background, the open air and blue Straitsher scenery. The audience found fault, but, on the whole, enjoyed theperformance, and demanded frequent repetitions. After a while Miss Loiswas admitted into the secret, and disapproved, and was curious, andlistened, and shook her head, but ended by liking the portraitures,which were in truth as fantastic as phantasmagoria. Miss Lois had neverseen a play or read a novel in her life. For some time the forestcontinued Anne's theatre, and more than once Miss Lois had takenafternoon walks, for which her conscience troubled her: she could notdecide whether it was right or wrong. But winter came, and gradually itgrew into a habit that Anne should recite at the church-house now andthen, the Indian servant who happened to be at that time the occupant ofthe kitchen being sent carefully away for the evening, in order that hereye should not be guiltily glued to the key-hole during the excitingvisits of Ophelia and Juliet. Anne was always reluctant to give theserecitations now that she had an audience. "Out in the woods," she said,"I had only the trees and the silence. I never thought of myself atall."
"But Miss Lois and I are as handsome as trees; and as to silence, wenever say a word," replied Rast. "Come, Annet, you know you like it."
"Yes; in--in one way I do."
"Then let us take that way," said Rast.