CHAPTER XV
ALMOST A WOMAN
Peace followed in the blighted trails of the Red Terror. Again theforest world breathed without fear; but from Hudson's Bay to Athabasca,and as far south as the thousand waters of the Reindeer country, thewinds whispered of a terrible grief that would remain until babes weremen and men went to their graves.
Life had been torn and broken in a cataclysm more fearful than thatwhich levels cities and disrupts the earth. Slowly it began itsreadjustment. There was no other life to give aid or sympathy; and justas they had suffered alone, so now the forest people struggled backinto life alone, building up from the wreck of what had been, thethings that were to be.
For months the Crees wailed their death dirges as they sought out thebones of their dead. Men dragged themselves into the posts, wifelessand childless, leaving deep in the wilderness all that they had knownto love and give them comfort. Now and then came a woman, and aroundthe black scars of burned cabins and teepees dogs howled mournfully formasters that were gone.
The plague had taken a thousand souls, and yet the laughing, dancingmillions in that other big world beyond the edge of the wildernesscaught only a passing rumor of what had happened.
Lac Bain suffered least of the far northern posts, with the exceptionof Churchill, where the icy winds down-pouring from the Arctic had sentthe Red Terror shivering to the westward. In the late snows, word camethat Cummins was to take Williams' place as factor, and Per-ee at onceset off for the Fond du Lac to bring back Jean de Gravois as "chiefman." Croisset gave up his fox-hunting to fill Mukee's place.
The changes brought new happiness to Melisse. Croisset's wife was agood woman who had spent her girlhood in Montreal, and Iowaka, now themother of a fire-eating little Jean and a handsome daughter, was asoft-voiced young Venus who had grown sweeter and prettier with heryears--which is not usually the case with half-breed women.
"But it's good blood in her, beautiful blood," vaunted Jean proudly,whenever the opportunity came. "Her mother was a princess, and herfather a pure Frenchman, whose father's father was a chef de bataillon.What better than that, eh? I say, what better could there be than that?"
So, for the first time in her life, Melisse discovered the joys ofcompanionship with those of her own kind.
This new companionship, pleasant as it was, did not come between herand Jan. If anything, they were more to each other than ever. Theterrible months through which they had passed had changed them both,and had given them, according to their years, the fruits which areoften ripened in the black gloom of disaster rather than in thesunshine of prosperity.
To Melisse they had opened up a new world of thought, a new vision ofthe things that existed about her. The sternest teacher of all hadbrought to her the knowledge that comes of grief, of terror, and ofdeath, and she had passed beyond her years, just as the cumulativeprocesses of generations made the Indian children pass beyond theirs.
She no longer looked upon Jan as a mere playmate, a being whosediversion was to amuse and to love her. He had become a man. In hereyes he was a hero, who had gone forth to fight the death of which shestill heard word and whisper all about her. Croisset's wife and Iowakatold her that he had done the bravest thing that a man might do onearth. She spoke proudly of him to the Indian children, who called himthe "torch-bearer." She noticed that he was as tall as Croisset, andtaller by half a head than Jean, and that he lifted her now with onearm as easily as if she were no heavier than a stick of wood.
Together they resumed their studies, devoting hours to them each day,and through all that summer he taught her to play upon his violin. Thewarm months were a time of idleness at Lac Bain, and Jan made the mostof them in his teaching of Melisse. She learned to read the books whichhe had used at Fort Churchill, and by midsummer she could read thosewhich he had used at York Factory. At night they wrote letters to eachother and delivered them across the table in the cabin, while Cumminslooked on and smoked, laughing happily at what they read aloud to him.
One night, late enough in the season for a fire to be crackling merrilyin the stove, Jan was reading one of these letters, when Melisse cried:
"Stop, Jan--stop THERE!"
Jan caught himself, and he blushed mightily when he read the next lines:
"'I think you have beautiful eyes. I love them.'"
"What is it?" cried Cummins interestedly. "Read on, Jan."
"Don't!" commanded Melisse, springing to her feet and running aroundthe table. "I didn't mean you to read that!"
She snatched the paper from Jan's hand and threw it into the fire.
Jan's blood filled with pleasure, and at the bottom of his next letterhe wrote back:
"I think you have beautiful hair. I love it."
That winter Jan was appointed post hunter, and this gave him much timeat home, for meat was plentiful along the edge of the barrens. The twocontinued at their books until they came to the end of what Jan knew inthem. After that, like searchers in strange places, they felt their wayonward, slowly and with caution. During the next summer they laboredthrough all the books which were in the little box in the corner of thecabin.
It was Melisse who now played most on the violin, and Jan listened, hiseyes glowing proudly as he saw how cleverly her little fingers dancedover the strings, his face flushed with a joy that was growing strongerin him every day. One day she looked curiously into the F-hole of theinstrument, and her pretty mouth puckered itself into a round, red "O"of astonishment when Jan quickly snatched the violin from her hands.
"Excuses-moi, ma belle Melisse," he laughed at her in French. "I amgoing to play you something new!"
That same day he took the little cloth-covered roll from the violin andgave it another hiding-place. It recalled to him the strange spiritwhich had once moved him at Fort Churchill, and which had remained withhim for a time at Lac Bain. That spirit was now gone, luring him nolonger. Time had drawn a softening veil over things that had passed. Hewas happy.
The wilderness became more beautiful to him as Melisse grew older. Eachsummer increased his happiness; each succeeding winter made it largerand more complete. Every fiber of his being sang in joyful response ashe watched Melisse pass from childhood into young girlhood. He markedevery turn in her development, the slightest change in hertransformation, as if she had been a beautiful flower.
He possessed none of the quick impetuosity of Jean de Gravois. Yearsgave the silence of the North to his tongue, and his exultation wasquiet and deep in his own heart. With an eagerness which no one guessedhe watched the growing beauty of her hair, marked its brighteningluster when he saw it falling in thick waves over her shoulders, and heknew that at last it had come to be like the woman's. The changinglights in her eyes fascinated him, and he rejoiced again when he sawthat they were deepening into the violet blue of the bakneesh flowersthat bloomed on the tops of the ridges.
To him, Melisse was growing into everything that was beautiful. She washis world, his life, and at Post Lac Bain there was nothing to comebetween the two. Jan noticed that in her thirteenth year she couldbarely stand under his outstretched arm. The next year she had grown sotall that she could not stand there at all. Very soon she would be awoman!
The thought leaped from his heart, and he spoke it aloud. It was on thegirl's fifteenth birthday. They had come up to the top of the ridge onwhich he had fought the missionary, to gather red sprigs of thebakneesh for the festival that they were to have in the cabin thatnight. High up on the face of a jagged rock, Jan saw a bit of thecrimson vine thrusting itself out into the sun, and, with Melisselaughing and encouraging him from below, he climbed up until he hadsecured it. He tossed it down to her.
"It's the last one," she cried, seeing his disadvantage, "and I'm goinghome. You can't catch me!"
She darted away swiftly along the snow-covered ridge, taunting him withmerry laughter as she left him clambering in cautious descent down therock. Jan followed in pursuit, shouting to her in French, in Cree, andin English, and their two voices echoed h
appily in their wild frolic.
Jan slackened his steps. It was a joy to see Melisse springing fromrock to rock and darting across the thin openings close ahead of him,her hair loosening and sweeping out in the sun, her slender figurefleeing with the lightness of the pale sun-shadows that ran up and downthe mountain.
He would not have overtaken her of his own choosing, but at the foot ofthe ridge Melisse gave up. She returned toward him, panting andlaughing, shimmering like a sea-naiad under the glistening veil of herdisheveled hair. Her face glowed with excitement; her eyes, filled withthe light of the sun, dazzled Jan in their laughing defiance. Beforeher he stopped, and made no effort to catch her. Never had he seen herso beautiful, still daring him with her laugh, quivering and panting,flinging back her hair. Half reaching out his arms, he cried:
"Melisse, you are beautiful--you are almost a woman!"
The flush deepened in her cheeks, and there was no longer the sweet,taunting mischief in her eyes. She made no effort to run from him whenhe came to her.
"Do you think so, Brother Jan?"
"If you did your hair up like the pictures we have in the books, youwould be a woman," he answered softly. "You are more beautiful than thepictures!"
He drew a step back, and her eyes flashed at him again with the sparkleof the old fun in them.
"You say that I am pretty, and that I am almost a woman," she pouted."And yet--" She shrugged her shoulders at him in mock disdain. "JanThoreau, this is the third time in the last week that you have notplayed the game right! I won't play with you any more!"
In a flash he was at her side, her face between his two hands and,bending down, he kissed her upon the mouth.
"There," she said, as he released her. "Isn't that the way we haveplayed it ever since I can remember? Whenever you catch me, you mayhave that!"
"I am afraid, Melisse," he said seriously. "You are growing so tall andso pretty that I am afraid."
"Afraid! My brother afraid to kiss me! And what will you do when I getto be a woman, Jan--which will be very soon, you say?"
"I don't know, Melisse."
She turned her back to him and flung out her hair; and Jan, who haddone this same thing for her a hundred times before, divided the silkenmass into three strands and plaited them into a braid.
"I don't believe that you care for me as much as you used to, Jan. Iwish I were a woman, so that I might know if you are going to forget meentirely!"
Her shoulders trembled; and when he had finished his task, he foundthat she was laughing, and that her eyes were swimming with a newmischief which she was trying to hide from him. In that laugh there wassomething which was not like Melisse. Slight as the change was, henoticed it; but instead of displeasing him, it set a vague sensation ofpleasure trilling like a new song within him.
When they reached the post, Melisse went to the cabin with herbakneesh, and Jan to the company's store. Tossing the vines upon thetable, Melisse ran back to the door and watched him until hedisappeared. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips half parted inexcitement; and no sooner had he gone from view than she hurried toIowaka's home across the clearing.
It was fully three quarters of an hour later when Jan saw Melisse, withIowaka's red shawl over her head, walking slowly and with extremeprecision of step back to the cabin.
"I wonder if she has the earache," he said to himself, watching hercuriously. "That is Iowaka's shawl, and she has it all about her head."
"A clear half-inch of the rarest wool from London," added the cheeryvoice of Jean de Gravois, whose moccasins had made no sound behind him.He always spoke in French to Jan. "There is but one person in the worldwho looks better in it than your Melisse, Jan Thoreau, and that isIowaka, my wife. Blessed saints, man, but is she not growing morebeautiful every day?"
"Yes," said Jan. "She will soon be a woman."
"A woman!" shouted Jean, who, not having his caribou whip, jumped upand down to emphasize his words. "She will soon be a woman, did yousay, Jan Thoreau? And if she is not a woman at thirty, with twochildren--God send others like them!--when will she be, I ask you?"
"I meant Melisse," laughed Jan.
"And I meant Iowaka," said Jean. "Ah, there she is now, come out to seeif her Jean de Gravois is on his way home with the sugar for which shesent him something like an hour ago; for you know she is chef decuisine of this affair to-night. Ah, she sees me not, and she turnsback heartily disappointed, I'll swear by all the saints in thecalendar! Did you ever see a figure like that, Jan Thoreau? And did youever see hair that shines so, like the top-feathers of a raven who'snibbling at himself in the hottest bit of sunshine he can find? Deliverus, but I'll go with the sugar this minute!"
The happy Jean hopped out, like a cricket over-burdened with life,calling loudly to his wife, who came to meet him.
A few minutes later Jan thrust his head in at their door, as he waspassing.
"I knew I should get a beating, or something worse, for forgetting thatsugar," cried the little Frenchman, holding up his bared arms."Dough--dough--dough--I'm rolling dough--dough for the bread, dough forthe cakes, dough for the pies--dough, Jan Thoreau, just common flourand water mixed and swabbed--I, Jean de Gravois, chief man at Post LacBain, am mixing dough! She is as beautiful as an angel and sweeter thansugar--my Iowaka, I mean; but there is more flesh in her earthlytabernacle than in mine, so I am compelled to mix this dough, mon ami.Iowaka, my dear, tell Jan what you were telling me, about Melisse and--"
"Hush!" cried Iowaka in her sweet Cree. "That is for Jan to find outfor himself."
"So--so it is," exclaimed the irrepressible Jean, plunging himself tothe elbows in his pan of dough. "Then hurry to the cabin, Jan, and seewhat sort of a birthday gift Melisse has got for you."