Part 2 (1/2)

I RESCUE AND AM RESCUED

So the happy childhood days sped on, a swift stream past flowered banks. Ben went off to sail the north sea in Captain Gillam's s.h.i.+p.

M. Picot, the French doctor, brought a governess from Paris for Hortense, so that we saw little of our playmate, and Jack Battle continued to live like a hunted rat at the docks.

My uncle and Rebecca's father, who were beginning to dabble in the fur trade, had jointly hired a peripatetic dominie to give us youngsters lessons in Bible history and the three R's. At noon hour I initiated Rebecca into all the thrilling dangers of Indian warfare, and many a time have we had wild escapes from imaginary savages by scaling a rope ladder of my own making up to the high nursery window. By-and-bye, when school was in and the dominie dozed, I would lower that timid little whiffet of a Puritan maid out through the window to the turnstile. Then I would ride her round till our heads whirled. If Jack Battle came along, Rebecca would jump down primly and run in, for Jack was unknown in the meeting-house, and the meeting-house was Rebecca's measure of the whole world.

One day Jack lingered. He was carrying something tenderly in a red cambric handkerchief.

”Where is Mistress Hortense?” he asked sheepishly.

”That silly French woman keeps her caged like a squirrel.”

Little Jack began t.i.ttering and giggling.

”Why--that's what I have here,” he explained, slipping a bundle of soft fur in my hand.

”It's tame! It's for Hortense,” said he.

”Why don't you take it to her, Jack?”

”Take it to her?” reiterated he in a daze. ”As long as she gets it, what does it matter who takes it?”

With that, he was off across the marshy commons, leaving the squirrel in my hand.

Forgetting lessons, I ran to M. Picot's house. That governess answered the knocker.

”From Jack Battle to Mistress Hortense!”

And I proffered the squirrel.

Though she smirked a world of thanks, she would not take it. Then Hortense came dancing down the hall.

”Am I not grown tall?” she asked, mischievously shaking her curls.

”No,” said I, looking down to her feet cased in those high slippers French ladies then wore, ”'tis your heels!”

And we all laughed. Catching sight of the squirrel, Hortense s.n.a.t.c.hed it up with caresses against her neck, and the French governess sputtered out something of which I knew only the word ”beau.”

”Jack is no beau, mademoiselle,” said I loftily. ”Pah! He's a wharf lad.”

I had thought Hortense would die in fits.

”Mademoiselle means the squirrel, Ramsay,” she said, choking, her handkerchief to her lips. ”Tell Jack thanks, with my love,” she called, floating back up the stairs.

And the governess set to laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank on the commons.

”Faith, mademoiselle,” said I ruefully, ”an she mayn't play war on the commons, what may she play?”

”Beau!” teases mademoiselle, perking her lips saucily; and she shut the door in my face.

It seemed a silly answer enough, but it put a notion in a lad's head.