Part 2 (1/2)

She took out her chest of simples, a quaintly-made birchen-bark receptacle. They had been carefully labelled by the doctor. Yes, here was ”fever”--here another. Which to take puzzled her.

”I might try first one and then the other,” she ruminated. ”I would get the good of both. And they might not mix well.”

She boiled some water and poured it over the herbs. It diffused a bitter, but not unpleasant flavor. Then she put it out of doors to cool.

Rose was sleeping heavily, but her eyes were half open and it startled Mere Dubray.

”A child is a great responsibility,” she moaned to herself. ”If the Sieur were only here, or the doctor!” She woke her presently and administered the potion. But it brought on a desperate sickness.

”Perhaps I had better try the other.” She took the hot, limp hand, the cheeks were burning, but great drops of perspiration stood out on the forehead. She twisted the soft hair in a knot and struck one of her highly-prized pins through it, then she thought a night-cap would be better. Only they would be a world too large for the child. But she succeeded in pinning it to the right shape, though she grudged the two pins. They were a great rarity in those days, and if one was lost hours were spent hunting it up.

The second dose fared better. There was nothing to do but let the child sleep. She busied herself about the few household cares, studied the weather and the signs of spring. Oh, was that a bird! Surely he was early with his song. The river went rus.h.i.+ng on joyously, leaping, foaming as if glad to be unchained. The air had softened marvellously.

Ah, why should one be ill when spring had come!

The kindly Mere repeated her dose. Towards night the fever seemed to abate, but the child was desperately restless and the worthy woman much troubled. Yet what was the child to her? to any one? And death was sure to come sometime. She would be spared much trouble. She would also lose much happiness. But was there any great share of it in this new world?

Rose was no better the next day. The nausea returned and clearly she was out of her head. But late this afternoon the Sieur and the young guest returned and were so much alarmed they dispatched an Indian servitor with instructions to bring the doctor at once.

”A pretty severe case,” he said, with a grave shake of the head. ”You have done the best you could, Mere Dubray, and children have wonderful recuperative powers. So we will try.”

”Poor, pretty little thing,” thought Destournier. ”Will she find anything worth living for?” Women had so few opportunities in those times. And when one was poor and unknown, and in a strange country. Yet he could not bear to think of her dying. There was always a hopeful future to living.

CHAPTER II

THE JOY OF FRIENDs.h.i.+P

She went down to the very boundaries of the other country, this little Rose. One night and one day they gave her up. She lay white and silent and Mere Dubray brought out a white muslin dress and ironed it up, much troubled to know whether she had a right to Christian burial or not.

And then she opened her eyes with their olden light and began to ask in a weak voice what happened to her yesterday, and found her last remembrance was six weeks agone.

She could hardly raise her thin little hand, but all the air was sweet with growing things. The tall trees had come into rich leaf.a.ge, the suns.h.i.+ne glowed upon the gra.s.s that danced as if each blade was fairy-born, and sparkled on the river that went hurrying by as if to tell a wonderful story. The great craggy upper town glinted in a thousand varying tints, and at evening was wreathed in trailing mists that seemed some strange army marching across. The thickly wooded hills were nodding and smiling to each other, some native fruit trees were in bloom, and the air was delicious with the scent of wild-grape fragrance.

”It was a bad fever. And we had no priest to call upon. As if people here did not need one as well as in that wild place with a long name where they are hunting copper and maybe gold. But thanks to the saints and the good doctor, you have come through. Ah, we ought to have a chapel at least where one could go and pray.”

”It is so beautiful and sweet. One would not want to be put in the ground.”

She shuddered thinking of it.

”No, no! And M. Pontgrave has come in with two s.h.i.+ps. There is plenty of provisions and fruits from La Belle France. See, M'sieu Ralph brought them in for you. Now you have only to get well.”

Mere Dubray's face was alight with joy. The child smiled faintly.

”And the Sieur de Champlain?” she asked.

”Oh, he is as busy as any two men with plans for building up the town, and workmen, and some women for wives--two of whom are married already, though one couple did their courting on s.h.i.+pboard. Oh, you must soon get about. We are going to have a rare summer.”

The child raised herself up a trifle and then sank back.