At night there was a ball, and the ball beat the dinner out of sight. Few indeed were the women, but numerous were the men. Indian women are not famous for grace or cleanliness, poor things. But they enjoyed the ball, and they did their best to dance. Such dancing! They seemed to have no joints. They stood up stiff as lamp-posts, and went with an up-and-down motion from side to side. But the men did the thing bravely, especially the Indians. The only dances attempted were Scotch reels, and the Indians tried to copy the fur-traders; but on finding this somewhat difficult, they introduced some surprising steps of their own, which threw the others entirely into the shade! There was unfortunately no fiddler, but there was a fiddle—one made of pine wood by an Indian, with strings of deer-skin sinew. Some of the boldest of the party scraped time without regard to tune, and our friend Heywood beat the kettle-drum. The tones of the fiddle at last became so horrible that it was banished altogether, and they danced that night to the kettle-drum!
Of course the fair bride was the queen of that ball. Her countenance was the light of it, and her modest, womanly manner had a softening influence on the rough men who surrounded her.
When the ball was over, a curious thing occurred in the hall in which it had taken place. The room was heated by a stove, and as a stove dries the air of a room too much, it was customary to keep a pan of water on the stove to moisten it a little. This moisture was increased that night by the steam of the supper and by the wild dancing, so that, when all was over, the walls and ceiling were covered with drops of water. During the night this all froze in the form of small beautifully-shaped crystals, and in the morning they found themselves in a crystal palace of nature’s own formation, which beat all the crystal palaces that ever were heard of—at least in originality, if not in splendour.
Thus happily ended the marriage-day of honest Jasper Derry and sweet Marie Laroche, and thus pleasantly began the new year of 18—. But as surely as darkness follows light, and night follows day, so surely does sorrow tread on the heels of joy in the history of man. God has so ordained it, and he is wise who counts upon experiencing both.
Chapter Thirteen.
The Conclusion.
A week after the events narrated in the last chapter, Jasper Derry was sitting beside the stove in the hall at Fort Erie, smoking his pipe and conversing with his father-in-law about his intention of going to Lake Winnipeg with the brigade in spring and proceeding thence to Canada in a bark canoe.
“Of course,” said he, “I will take Marie with me, and if you’ll take my advice, father, you’ll come too.”