When we arrived she inquired tenderly as to the symptoms of the lovely invalid. Finding they had come from St. Regis by water, and had brought her on a bed of boughs in their canoe to Ogdensburg, thence up the Oswegatchie to Black Lake, and thus far up the Indian River, she also was of the opinion that the frail child was exhausted by fatigue, and that rest would revive her.
They had undertaken the journey in the hope that a change would be a benefit to her health. Her father came with them and was at the camp, but the mother preferred a place where her charge could be better sheltered than in a wigwam.
My mother went home, and, gathering comfortable furniture for their room, despatched a man with it; then, preparing some hot wine negus with toasted crackers, she sent them by me to refresh the sufferer while some nourishing broth could be made ready.
From that time I forsook the wigwams and devoted myself to my Wild Rose; who became so fond of me that she could scarcely consent to my leaving her for the nights. Each morning found me at her bedside before sunrise, with my own breakfast as well as hers, that we might partake of it together,
and with a profusion of fresh flowers from the abundance of my mother’s flower-garden wherewith to adorn her room. The Indian children had helped me to festoon it with wreaths of ground pine and boughs, until it was an evergreen bower in which we took great satisfaction.
My mother gathered from her her little history. She had been betrothed to a young son of their chief, and they were to have been married the previous fall. The time for the nuptials had been appointed and her bridal dress prepared. The young man was sent by his father on some business to Montreal a few days before the time thus appointed. On the way his canoe was drawn suddenly into a whirlpool in the rapids, dashed to fragments upon the rocks, and he perished. The shock of this terrible calamity was fatal to her health, which had never been robust. From that moment she drooped, and, though quite calm, even cheerful, had been gradually wasting and sinking. They improved the first mild days of spring to try the effect of a change of air and scene, after she had received the last sacraments from their priest in preparation for the worst.
For a few weeks she seemed to revive, and even walked with me once as far as my own home. Her appetite improved, and she relished all that my mother’s care provided for her food.
As I remember her at this distant day, I know she must have been a being of superior beauty and loveliness; but there was nothing about her which so fascinated and impressed my young heart as the spirit of piety that governed all her words and actions, and seemed to flow from the depths of her pure soul
like transparent waters from a fountain, refreshing every one who came within their influence.
One warm evening in the early summer we sat together for a long time in silence and alone, watching a beautiful sunset over the wild “Rossie Hills,” when her soft voice breathed in her own musical language expressions which subsequent events fixed indelibly in my memory.