A Little Girl in Old Detroit

by Amanda M. Douglas

"I was willing that she should return to her own faith, which she did. I left her in good hands. Fortune favored me. I liked the stir and excitement, the out-of-door life, the glamour of adventures. I found men who were of the same cast of mind. To be sure, there were dangers, there was also the pleasure and gratification of leadership, of subduing savage natures. When I had resolved to settle in the North I sent to my wife by a messenger and received answer that since I thought it best she would come to me. I felt that she had no longing for the wild life, but I meant to do my utmost to satisfy her. There was her Church at St. Ignace, there were kindly priests, and some charming and heroic women. With my love to shield her I felt she must be happy. There was a company to leave Albany, enough it was thought to make traveling safe, for Indians were still troublesome. I made arrangements for her to join them, and was to meet them at Detroit. Alas! word came that, while they were still some distance from their point of embarkation on Lake Erie, they were set upon and massacred by a body of roving Indians. Instead of my beloved wife I met one of the survivors in Detroit and heard the terrible story. Not a woman in the party had escaped. The Indians had not burthened themselves with troublesome prisoners. I returned to Michilimackinac with a heart bowed down with grief. There was the comfortable home awaiting my wife, made as pretty as it had been possible to do. I could not endure it and joined some members of the company going to Hudson Bay. I made some fresh efforts to learn if anything further had been heard, but no word ever came. It is true that I married again. It does not seem possible that a once wedded wife should have lived all these years and made no effort to communicate with her husband, who, after all, could have been found. And though for years I have been known as the White Chief, from a curious power I have gained over the Indians, the hunters, and traders, I am also known as the Sieur Angelot."

He stood proudly before them, his handsome, weather-bronzed face bearing the impress of truth, his eyes shining with the clearest, highest honor. The child Jeanne felt the stiffening of every muscle, and it went through her with a thrill of joy.

"It is a long story," began Father Rameau, gently, "a strange one, too. Through the courage and craftiness of a Miami squaw, who had been a sort of maid to Madame Angelot, she escaped death. They hid in the woods and subsisted on anything they could find until Madame could go no farther. She thought herself dying, and implored the woman to take her babe to Detroit and find its father, and she lay down in a leafy covert to die. In that hour she repented bitterly of her course in leaving the convent and listening to a forbidden love. She prayed God to believe if it were to do over again she would hearken to the voice of the Church, and hoped this fervent repentance would be remembered in her behalf. Then she resigned herself to death. But in the providence of the good All Father she was rescued by another party and taken to a farmhouse not far distant. Here were two devoted women who were going to Montreal to enter the convent, and were to embark at a point on Lake Ontario, where a boat going North would touch. They nursed her for several weeks before she was able to travel, and then she decided to cast in her lot with them. Her husband, no doubt, had the child. She was dead to the world. She belonged henceforward to the Church and to the service of God. Moreover, it was what she desired. She had tried worldly love and her own will, and been unhappy in it. Monsieur, she was born for a devotee. It was a sad mistake when she yielded to your persuasions. Her parents had destined her for the convent, and she had a double debt to pay. The marriage was unlawful and she was absolved from it."

"Then I was free also. It cannot bind on one side and loose on the other. I believe you have said rightly. She was not happy, though I think even now she will tell you that I did all in my power. I did not oppose her going back to her first faith, although then I would have fought against this disruption of the marriage tie."

"It was no marriage in God's sight, with a heretic," interposed Father Gilbert. "She repented her waywardness bitterly. God made her to see it through sore trial. But the child is hers."

"Not when you admit that she sent it to me, gave me the right," was the confident reply.

He pressed Jeanne closer and with a strength that said, "I will fight for you." The proud dignity of his carriage, the resolution in his face, indicated that he would not be an easy enemy to combat. There was a strange silence, as if no one could tell what would be the next move. He broke it, however.

"The child shall decide," he said. "She shall hear her mother's story, and then mine. She shall select with whom she will spend the coming years. God knows I should have been glad enough to have had her then. By what sad mistake fate should have traversed the mother's wishes, and given her these wasted years, I cannot divine."

They were only to guess at that. The Miami woman had grown tired of her charge, so unlike the papooses of the Indian mothers. Then, too, it was heavy to carry, difficult to feed. She met a party of her own tribe and resolved to cast in her destiny with them. They were going into Ohio to meet some scattered members of their people, and to effect a union with other Indian nations, looking to the recovery of much of their power. She went up to Detroit in a canoe, and, taking the sleeping child, reconnoitered awhile; finally, seeing Pani sitting alone under a great tree, she dropped the child into her lap and ran swiftly away, feeling confident the father would in some way discover the little one, since her name was pinned to her clothing. Then she rowed rapidly back, her Indian ideas quite satisfied.

"I wonder if I might see"—what should he call her?—"Jeanne's mother."