A Little Girl in Old St. Louis

The wild cry of “The Indians! the Indians!” had roused a small group from their desultory enjoyment. They were pouring down in what seemed a countless throng. Marchand had no we...

Wawataysee fashioned a frock for Renée out of some silvery threaded stuff that had soft blue disks here and there, looking almost like bits of fur. Round the shoulders was a ban...

There was news enough at Madame Renaud’s. Every year she grew a little stouter, a trifle more consequential. The grandmères always were. Elise and Louis both had little daughter...

Renée mended slowly. She had indeed been very ill. She was so weak that it tired her to sit up among the pillows in her bed. And one day when she insisted upon getting up she dr...

It was only a short distance to the priest’s house, where the classes met. She ran off by herself. There was quite a throng of girls, though, as with most of the early Western s...

Soon after daylight the strong west wind drove away the rain and clouds. The air was soft and balmy, full of the indescribable odors of spring. Birds began their pipings; robin...

All the world was abloom and fragrant with later spring. The children were ranging out on the great mound, learning lessons of the sky, with all its variations; of the woods, wi...

Gaspard Denys had wondered more than once about Barbe’s married life, and at Gardepier’s second visit to St. Louis he was quite convinced that he was not the kind of man to make...

Gaspard Denys was out by the gate waiting, quite at a loss to know what could keep his little girl, and wondering what had made her so quiet and indifferent of late. Had she rea...

It was, indeed, the lodges of the Peorias. The old chief, Neepawa, had long since given up rambling life, and with many of the elder people formed a settlement, where they had l...

The way was tolerably clear for a long distance, though shielded from the view of the Indians by the intervening trees. When the strip of woods failed them for shelter it was gr...

“Renée,” he began presently, “that man is playing with you. He is endeavoring to win your affections, and he will go away soon and you will be left to get over it as best you may.”

Renée de Longueville was fifteen and very fair to look upon, if not as beautiful as Madame Marchand, or perhaps as some of the belles of the town. She was slight and not very ta...

The boats were coming up the river, a long line slow moving, and not with the usual shouts and songs. Half the town turned out to welcome them. Along the edge of the levee in th...

In after years, when Renée de Longueville looked back at what seemed the real beginning of her life, everything about the old town was enveloped in a curious glamour. For it was...

“What ails the child?” inquired Mère Lunde. “She has not been like herself the last fortnight. And now she is in there, crying as if her heart would break. It is all that André...

“She is only an Indian after all,” the girl exclaimed disdainfully. “And my mother thinks it a shame M’sieu Marchand should have married her when there were so many nice girls i...

The bell had clanged and the gates of the stockade were closed. There were some houses on the outside; there was not so much fear of the Indians here, for the French had the art...

It was strange how petitions grew. Renée used to walk gravely up to the old church—the door was never fastened—and slip in and say her prayer. Once a woman came who had lost her...

There was, it is true, a side not so simple and wholesome, and this had been gathering slowly since the advent of the governor. More drunken men were seen about the levee. There...

In the second year after Renée’s return two signal events happened. A new little boy was born. She had coveted a girl for Papa Gaspard to love as he had loved her, but one had t...

Once again the French flag waved over St. Louis and hearts beat high with joy. Not that they had been unhappy or discontented under the Spanish _régime_, though the place had re...

Cities that have grown from small hamlets seldom keep register of their earlier days, except in the legends handed down in families. St. Louis has the curious anomaly of beginni...