“Oh, then you would have belonged to that hateful old man!” and she gave her foot a quick stamp. “No, I should not want you to.”
He laughed softly. He would have been glad enough to belong to the hateful old man years ago, and belong to the child as well.
“It doesn’t matter, little one,” he said tenderly. “I shall be your uncle all my life long. Don’t bother your head about relationships. Come, see your room. It will soon be dry, and then you shall take possession.”
It had been whitewashed, and the puncheon floor—laid in most houses, it being difficult to get flat boards—stained a pretty reddish color. The window had a curtain hung to it, some of the Canadian stuff. One corner had been partitioned off for a closet. There was a box with a curtain tacked around it, and a white cover over it, to do duty as a dressing-table. There were two rustic chairs, and some pretty Indian basket-like pouches had been hung around.
“Oh, oh!” she cried in delight. “Why, it is as pretty as Ma’m’selle Barbe’s—almost as pretty,” correcting herself. “And can I not come at once?”
“There must be a bed for you to sleep on, though we might sling a hammock.”
“And Mère Lunde?”
“Come through and see.”
In one corner of this, which was the ordinary living room, was a sort of pallet, a long box with a cover, in which Mère Lunde kept her own belongings, with a mattress on the top, spread over with a blanket, answering for a seat as well. She had despoiled her little cottage, for Gaspard Denys had said, “It is a home for all the rest of your life if you can be content,” and she had called down the blessings of the good God upon him. So, here were shelves with her dishes, some that her mother had brought over to New Orleans as a bride; china and pewter, and coarse earthenware acquired since, and queer Indian jars, and baskets stiffened with a kind of clay that hardened in the heating.
“Welcome, little one,” she exclaimed cheerfully. “The good uncle gets ready the little nest for thee. And soon we shall be a family indeed.”