The Rose of Old St. Louis

by Mary Dillon

To my surprise, he was almost more eager for it than my mother. It need not have surprised me, for even in the old days my father, though stern, had never been selfish, and now all the unselfishness of his nature had seemed to grow strong with his feebleness.

Thus it was that I stood once more on the shores of the Great River. Had my impatience permitted me to wait a little longer at Pittsburg, I might have found a boat going all the way to St. Louis, but I had rather take the ride of nearly a hundred and fifty miles on Bourbon (for so I had shortened his name) than to spend a day in idle waiting. A barge going to New Orleans (New Orleans had been under our flag since the twentieth of December, and the river was teeming with craft bearing our merchandise to the once prohibited market) took me on board and put me ashore at New Madrid in the early morning, and I lost not a moment's time in getting started on my northward way.

The spring was early that year, and in the warm and sheltered valley, lying open to the south, where New Madrid nestles, the orchards were already a pink and white glory, and in the forest glades the wild azaleas and the dogwood were just ready to burst into bloom. Riding under leafy archways of tall trees garlanded with wild vines, or through natural meadows dotted with clumps of shrubbery, as if set out by the hand of man for a park, where the turf was like velvet under Bourbon's feet; crossing little streams that a sudden rush of headwater from the hills had swollen to dangerous torrents, or other streams that backwater from the Great River had converted into inland lakes; the air sweet with the fragrance of the wild crab and blossoming grape; wood-thrush and oriole, meadow-lark and cardinal-bird, making the woods ring with their melodies—this ride through Upper Louisiana in the early springtime was one long joy to eye and ear and nostril. Farther north the spring was less advanced, only little leaves on the trees, and for flowers a carpet, sometimes extending for miles, of creamy-white spring-beauties, streaked with rosy pink, laid down for Bourbon's feet to tread upon; and for birds the modest song-sparrow and bluebird, earliest harbingers of spring.

I stayed the first night in Cape Girardeau (and thought of the chevalier in hiding for weeks among the Osages near by); the second night I spent with the Vallés in Ste. Genevieve. I had known young François Vallé in St. Louis the winter before, and meeting me on the street as I rode into town, he carried me off at once to his father's house with true Louisiana hospitality—a hospitality that welcomed the coming but did not speed the parting guest. I found it hard work to get away the next morning, with such friendly insistence did they urge me to remain for a visit, seeming to feel also that I was putting a slight upon their quaint old town—the oldest in Upper Louisiana—by so short a stay.

But I was impatient to be on my way, and my impatience grew as I neared St. Louis. A long day's ride brought me toward evening to the banks of the Maramec, full to the brim of its high banks with backwater from the Mississippi. I thought, at first, I would have to swim it, but, fortunately, I spied a horn hanging from the limb of a sycamore above my head, and I knew enough of the ways of this frontier country to know that a horn by a river-bank meant a ferry. So I blew it lustily, and in five minutes there appeared from under the overhanging trees of the opposite bank a flatboat, paddled by an old man, who not only ferried Bourbon and me safely across dry-shod, but persuaded me to spend the night with him in his little cabin; for the night was coming on cloudy and dark, and there were still nearly twenty miles to ride, and swollen streams to cross that might mean trouble in the dark. He had not the great house of the Vallés, with troops of slaves to wait on us and an abundance of frontier luxuries (for Mr. François Vallé, Sr., was the richest man in all that country) but his hospitality was as genuine. For the ferriage he took money, since that was his business; for the night's lodging and supper and breakfast he would have none of it. True, my bed was only a bearskin on the hard floor, and my supper and breakfast were the same,—a slice of bacon and a bowl of hominy,—but such as he had he gave me of his best.

In the early dawn I had a plunge in the Maramec for bath (and its waters had the icy tang of the melting snows on the distant mountains), and then I made a careful toilet, for in a few hours I would see my old friends in St. Louis, and, at thought of the merry glances from bright eyes I would soon be meeting, my heart sank within me that Pelagie's would not be among them.

As I neared St. Louis, every step of the way was full of reminders of her. Crossing La Petite Rivière, I thought of the day of the picnic on Chouteau's Pond, and involuntarily I listened for the call of the whippoorwill. But instead there was the happy song of the spring birds filling the woods that crested the banks, and my heart grew lighter in response to their joyous melodies.

I entered the town by the lower entrance, leading through the stockade on to the Rue Royale, for I was of a mind to ride through the streets of the town and see whom I should chance to meet before presenting myself at Dr. Saugrain's.

I had advanced no great distance when I saw coming to meet me a splendid procession: young men and maidens, parents and children, the whole population of the town, I should think, in gala array, and singing as they came.

I was overwhelmed at the prospect of such honor accorded me, and greatly touched, too, that my old friends should welcome me back so gladly, but I was in a quandary what to do: whether it would be more dignified to stay Bourbon in the middle of the road and await their approach, or whether to advance to meet them.