Part 26 (1/2)

”Oh, Pani is with the Indian women over there at the booths. No, stay, Jeanne,” and Rose caught her hand. ”Look! look! Why, they might almost be birds. Isn't it grand? But--Pierre--”

She might have spared her anxiety. Pierre came over with a splendid flying leap, clearing the bar better than his predecessor. A wild shout went up and Pierre's hand was clasped and shaken with a hearty approval.

The girls crowded around him, and all was noisy jollity. Jeanne simply glanced up and he caught her eye.

”I have pleased her this time,” he thought.

The racing of the squaws, though some indeed were quite young girls, was productive of much amus.e.m.e.nt. This was the only trial that had a prize attached to it,--a beautiful blanket, for money was a scarce commodity.

A slim, young damsel won it.

”Jeanne,” and Pierre bent over her, for, though she was taller than the average, he was head and almost shoulders above her, ”Jeanne, you could have beaten them all.”

She flushed. ”I do not run races anymore,” she returned with dignity.

He sighed. ”That was a happy old time. How long ago it seems!

Jeanne--are you glad to see me? You are so--so grave. And all the time I have been thinking of the child--I forgot you were to grow.”

Some one blew a horn long and loud that sent echoes among the trees a thousand times more beautiful than the sound itself. The tables, if they could be called that, were spread, and in no time were surrounded by merry, laughing, chatting groups, who brought with them the appet.i.tes of the woods and wilds, hardly leaving crumbs for the birds.

After that there was dancing again and rambling around, and Pierre was made much of by the mothers. It was a proud day for Madame De Ber, and she glanced about among the girls to see whom of them she would choose for a daughter-in-law. For now Pierre could have his pick of them all.

CHAPTER XI.

LOVE, LIKE THE ROSE, IS BRIERY.

Jeanne Angelot sat in the doorway in the moonlight silvering the street.

There were so many nooks and places in shadow that everything had a weird, fantastic look. The small garrison were quiet, and many of them asleep by nine o'clock. Early hours was the rule except in what were called the great houses. But in this out of the way nook few pedestrians ever pa.s.sed in the evening.

”Child, are you not coming to bed? Why do you sit there? You said you were tired.”

Pani was crooning over a handful of fire. The May suns.h.i.+ne had not penetrated all the houses, and her old blood had lost its heat.

”Yes, I was. What with the dancing and the walking about and all I was very weary. I want to get rested. It is so quiet and lovely.”

”You can rest in bed.”

”I want to stay here a little while longer. Do not mind me, but go to bed yourself.”

The voice was tender, persuasive, but Pani did not stir. Now and then she felt uncertain of the child.

”Was it not a happy day to you, _ma fille_?”

”Yes,” with soft brevity.

Had it been happy? At different times during the past two years a curious something, like a great wave, had swept over her, bearing her away, yet slowly she seemed to float back. Only it was never quite the same--the sh.o.r.es, the woods, the birds, the squirrels, the deer that came and looked at her with unafraid eyes, impressed her with some new, inexplicable emotion. What meaning was behind them?

But to-night she could not go back. She had pa.s.sed the unknown boundary.

Her limited knowledge could not understand the unfolding, the budding of womanhood, whose next change was blossoming. It had been a day of varied emotions. If she could have run up the hillside with no curious eyes upon her, sung with the birds, gathered great handfuls of daisies and bell flowers, tumbled up the pink and yellow fungus that grew around the tree roots, studied the bits of crisp moss that stood up like sentinels, with their red caps, and if you trod on them bristled up again, or if she could have climbed the trees and swung from branch to branch in the wavering flecks of suns.h.i.+ne as she did only such a little while ago, all would have been well. What was it restrained her? Was it the throng of people? She had enjoyed startling them with a kind of bravado. That was childhood. Ah, yes. Everybody grew up, and these wild antics no longer pleased. Oh, could she not go back and have it all over again?