Part 9

By ascending a steep bank on which the western block-house stands, you know you can look down into the drill-ground—that wide meadow behind the fort, with quarters at the back. Mrs. Gunning had an enclosure built outside the wall for her chickens; and there they were, walking about, scratching the ground, and diverting themselves as well as they could in their clothes. She had a shed at one end of the enclosure, and all the hens, walking about or sitting on nests, wore hoods! Holes were made for their eyes but none for their beaks, and the eyelets seemed to magnify so that they looked wrathy as they stretched their necks and quavered in those bags. Captain Markley and I both burst out laughing, but Mrs. Gunning explained it all seriously.

“They eat their eggs,” says she; “so I tie hoods on them until I have collected the eggs for the day.”

I remember some were clawing their head-gear, trying alternate feet, and two determined hens were trying to peck each other free. But they were generally resigned, and we might have grown so after the first minute, if it hadn't been for the rooster.

Captain Markley roared, and I leaned against the lower part of the block-house and held my sides. That long-legged, awkward, high-stepping Shanghai cock was dressed like a man in a suit of clothes—all but a hat. His coat-sleeves extended over his wings, and when he flapped them to crow, and stuck his claws out of his trousers-legs, I wept tears on my handkerchief. Mrs. Gunning talked straight ahead without paying any attention to our laughter. If it ever had been funny to her it had ceased to be so. She had not brought Captain Markley there to amuse him.

“Look at that Shanghai rooster now,” says she. “I brought him up from the South. I put him among the hens and they picked all his feathers off. He was as bare, captain, as your hand. He was literally hen-pecked. First one would step up to him and pull out a feather; then another; and he, poor fool, did nothing but cower against the fence. It never seemed to enter his brain-pan he could put a stop to the torture. There he was, without a feather to cover himself with, and the cool autumn nights coming on. So I took some gray cloth and made him these clothes. He would have been picked to the bone if I hadn't. But they put spunk into him. That Shanghai rooster has found out he has to assert himself, captain, and he does assert himself.”

I saw Captain Markley turn red, and I knew he wished the sentinel wasn't standing guard a few feet away in front of that block-house.

She might have let him alone after she had given him that thrust, and gone on to her house, and said good-bye in the usual way. But just as he was helping me down it happened that Juliana and Dr. McCurdy appeared through the rear sally-port, which they must have reached by skirting the wall instead of crossing the drill-field. As soon as Mrs. Gunning saw them she stiffened, and clubbed her umbrella at Captain Markley again. He couldn't get away, so he stood his ground.

“See that creature begin to curvet and roll her eyes!” says Mrs. Gunning. “If the parade-ground were full of men I think she would prance over the parapet. At my age she may have some sense and feeling. But I would be glad to see her in the hands of a man who knew how to assert himself.”

“May I ask,” says Captain Markley, “what you mean by a man's asserting himself, Mrs. Gunning?”

She made such a pounce at him with the parasol that her waist began to rip in the back.

“My dear boy, I am a full-blooded Briton, and Juliana is what you may call an English half-breed. In the bottom of our hearts we have a hankering for monarchy. The lion, who permits nobody else to poach on his preserves, is our symbol. While the vexatious child and I are not at all alike in other things, I know she admires as much as I do a man who asserts himself.”

Though it was said Juliana Gunning could not hear thunder, she generally understood her aunt's voice, and could tell when she was being talked about. She came straight to her own rescue, as you might say, and Dr. McCurdy, poor man, was very polite, but not cheerful. If we had known then what he had been yelling in the woods, we should have understood better why Captain Markley seemed to pluck up and strut at the sight of him.

I think Mrs. Gunning determined to finish the business that very hour. She met Dr. McCurdy with all the sweetness she could put into her manner just before she intended to pounce the hardest.

“I have been showing the captain my chickens,” she says, “and now I want to show you my cows.”

Dr. McCurdy thanked her, and said he would be delighted to see the cows, but he stuck to Juliana like a shadow. Maybe he expected the cows would give him a further excuse for being with her. But Mrs. Gunning cut him off there. She gave her keys to her niece, and says she:

“Go in the house, my dear, and set out the decanter and glasses, and give Captain Markley a glass of wine to keep him until we come back. I want to tell him something more about that Shanghai rooster.”

Juliana understood, and took the keys, and rolled her eyes tantalizingly at Dr. McCurdy. The poor fellow made a stand, and said the cows would do some other time, and mightn't he beg for a glass of wine too, after his walk?

“Certainly, doctor, certainly,” says Mrs. Gunning, leading the way to the front sally-port. “We expect you to take a glass with us. But while Juliana sets out the decanter, let us look at the cows.”

She hadn't mentioned me, but I didn't care for that, knowing Mrs. Gunning as I did. I should have followed if she hadn't beckoned to me, for I was as determined to see the affair through as she was to finish it.

We had to go down that long path from the front sally-port to the street, and then turn into the field at the foot of the hill, where the fort stables are. Mrs. Gunning talked all the time about cattle, flourishing her parasol and flashing her diamonds and emeralds in the sun, and telling Dr. McCurdy she had intended to ask his opinion about them ever since his arrival on the island. He answered yes, and no, and seemed to be thinking of anything but cattle.

Mackinac cows tinkled their bells in every thicket. But Mrs. Gunning's pets were brought in morning and afternoon to clean, well-lighted stalls. There they stood in a row, sleek as if they had been curried—and I have heard that she did curry them herself—all switching natural tails except one. And, as sure as you live, that cow had a false tail that Mrs. Gunning had made for her!

She took hold of it and showed it to us. It did not seem very funny to Dr. McCurdy, but he had to listen to what she said.

“Spotty was a fine cow, but by some accident she had lost her tail, and I got her cheaper on that account,” says Mrs. Gunning. “You don't know how distressing it was to see her switching a stump. So I made her a tail of whalebone and India-rubber and yarn. I knit it myself.”

The poor fellow looked up at the fort and said: “Yes. It is very interesting, Mrs. Gunning.”

“I am aware,” says she, “that the expedient was never hit upon before. But Spotty's brush is a great success. It used to make me unhappy to think of leaving this post. All the other cows might find good homes with new owners; but who would care for Spotty? Since I have supplied her deficiency, however, and know that the supply can constantly be renewed, my mind is easy about her. If you ever have to knit a cow's tail, doctor, remember the foundations are whalebone and India-rubber; and I would advise you to use the coarsest yarn you can find for the brush.”

“I will, Mrs. Gunning,” he says, like a man who wanted to lie down in the straw and die. And I couldn't laugh and relieve myself, because it was like laughing at him.

“Now that shows,” says Mrs. Gunning, and she pounced at him and shook her parasol in his face so vigorously that she ripped in the back the same as a chrysalis, “how easy it is to remedy a seemingly incurable injury.”

If he didn't understand her then, he did afterwards. But he looked as if he couldn't endure it any longer, and made for the door.

“Stop, Dr. McCurdy,” says she. “You haven't heard these cows' pedigrees.”

He stopped, and said: “How long are the pedigrees?”

“Here are four generations,” says Mrs. Gunning—“grandmother, mother, daughter, and grandchild.” And on she went, tracing their lineage through blooded stock for more than half an hour. She was enthusiastic, too, and got between the doctor and the door, and emphasized all her points with the parasol. Her back kept ripping until I ought to have told her, but I knew the man was too mad to look at her, and she was so happy herself, I said, “I will let her alone.”

I had forgotten all about my half-breed driver, sitting on the parade-ground in the waiting carriage. But he was enjoying himself too, when we climbed to the fort again, with a soldier lounging on the front wheel.

Well, as soon as I entered the little parlor that Mrs. Gunning called her drawing-room—ornamented with the movable knickknacks that an army woman carries around with her, you know—I saw that Captain Markley had asserted himself. If he hadn't asserted himself on that occasion, I do believe Mrs. Gunning would have been done with him forever. I never saw a man so anxious to show that he was accepted. Of course he couldn't announce the engagement until it had been sanctioned by the girl's foster-parents. But he put Juliana through the engaged drill like a veteran, and she was wonderfully meek.

I suppose one British woman knows another better than an American can. But I felt sorry for Dr. McCurdy when he saw the state of things and took his leave, and Mrs. Gunning rubbed his defeat on the raw.

“Ah, my dear friend,” says she, shaking his hand, “we see that buds will match with buds. I could never find it in my heart to wed a bud to a full-blown rose.”

I don't doubt that the full-blown rose, as he went down the fort hill, cursed Mrs. Gunning's cow's tail and all her cows' pedigrees. But she looked as serene as if he had pledged the young couple's health (instead of going off and leaving his wine half tasted), and took me to see her chickens' cupboard.

There were shelves with rows of cans and bottles, each can or bottle labelled “Molly,” or “Lucy,” or “Speckie,” and so on.

“I have discovered,” Mrs. Gunning says to me, “that one hen's food may be another hen's poison, so I mix and prepare for each fowl what that fowl seems to need. For instance, Lucy can bear more meal than Speckie, and the Shanghai cock had to be strongly encouraged. Though it sometimes happens,” says she, casting her eye back towards the drawing-room, “that such a fellow gets pampered, and has to have his diet reduced and his spirit cooled down again.”

THE CURSED PATOIS

As his boat shot to the camp dock of beach stones, the camper thought he heard a child's voice behind the screen of brush. He leaped out and drew the boat to its landing upon a cross-piece held by two uprights in the water, and ascended the steep path worn in leaf mould.

There was not only a child, there was a woman also in the camp. And Frank Puttany, his German feet planted outward in a line, his smiling dark face unctuous with hospitality towards creatures whom he had evidently introduced, in foolish helplessness gave his partner the usual greeting:

“Vell, Prowny.”

“Hello, Puttany. Visitors?”

Brown pulled off his cap to the woman. She was pretty, with eyes like a deer's, with white teeth showing between her parted scarlet lips, and much curling hair pinned up and blowing over her ears. She had the rich tint of a quarter-breed, lightened in her case by a constant suffusion which gave her steady color. She was dressed in a mixture of patches, but all were fitted to her perfect shape with a Parisian elegance sensed even by backwoodsmen. Pressed against her knee stood the dirtiest and chubbiest four-year-old child on the borders of Brevoort Lake—perhaps the dirtiest on the north shore of Michigan. The Indian mixed with his French had been improved on by the sun until he was of a brick redness and hardness of flesh; a rosy-meated thing, like a good muskalonge. Brown suddenly remembered the pair. They were Joe La France's wife and child. Joe La France was dead. Puttany had recently told him that Joe La France left a widow and a baby without shelter, and without relations nearer than Canada.

After greeting Brown the guest resumed her seat on one of the camp-chairs, a box worn smooth by much use, having a slit cut in the top through which the hand could be thrust to lift it.

The camp, in a small clearing, consisted of two tents, both of the wedge-shaped kind. The sleeping-tent was nearly filled by the bed it contained; and this, lifted a few inches above the ground on pole supports, was of browse or brush and straw, covered with blankets. A square canopy of mosquito-netting protected it. The cooking-tent had a foundation of logs and a canvas top. The floor was of pure white sand. Boxes like lockers were stored under the eaves to hold food, and in one corner a cylindrical camp-stove with an oven thrust its pipe through a tinned hole in the roof. Plenty of iron skillets, kettles, and pans hung above the lockers on pegs in the logs; and the camp dinner service of white ware, black-handled knives and forks, and metal spoons, neatly washed, stood on a table. Jess, the Scotch collie, who was always left to guard the tents in their owners' absence, sat at her usual post within the door; and she and Brown exchanged repressed growls at the strangers. Jess, being freed from her chain, trotted at his heels when he went back to the beach to clean fish for supper. She sat and watched his deft and work-hardened hands as he dipped and washed and drew and scaled his spoil. He was a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman, well made and sinewy, bright and open of countenance. His blond hair clung in almost flaxen tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was visible about him, yet he turned like a man in fierce self-defence on his partner, who followed Jess and stood also watching him.

“Puttany, you fool! what have you brought these cursed patois into camp for?”

“Joe La France vas my old pardner,” softly pleaded the German.

“Damn you, man, we can't start an orphan-asylum and widows' home! We'll get a bad name at the hotels. The real good people won't have us for guides.”

“She told me in Allanville she had no place to stay. She did not know what to do. At the old voman's, where Joe put her, they have need of her bed. The old voman is too poor to keep her any more.”

“I'd have done just what you did; that's what makes me so mad. How long is she going to stay?”

“I don't know,” sheepishly responded his partner.

“A Dutchman ought to have more sense than to load up with a lot of cursed patois. Nothing but French and Indian! We'll have to put the precious dears in the sleeping-tent, and bunk down ourselves with blankets in the other. Did you air the blankets good this morning, Frank?”

“They vos vell aired.”

“You're a soft mark, Frank! One of us will have to marry Joe La France's widow—that's what it will come to!” Brown slapped the water in violent disgust, but Puttany blushed a dark and modest red.

Men of their class rarely have vision or any kind of foresight. They live in the present and plan no farther than their horizon, being, like children, overpowered by visible things. But the Irish Canadian had lived many lives as lake sailor and lumberman, and he had a shrewd eye and quick humor. It was he who had devised the conveniences of the camp, and who delicately and skilfully prepared the meals so that the two fared like epicures; while Puttany did the scullery-work, and was superior only at deer-stalking.

The perfume of coffee presently sifted abroad, and the table was brought out and set under the evening sky. Lockers gave up their store of bread and pastry made by the capable hands of the camp housekeeper. The woman, their guest, sat watching him move from cook-tent to table, and Puttany lounged on the dog-kennel, whittling a stick.

“Frank,” said his partner, with sudden authority, “you take the kid down to the water and scrub him.”

“All over?” whispered Puttany, in confusion.

“No—just his hands and top. Supper is ready to put on.”

The docile mother heard her child yelling and blubbering under generous douches while nurse's duty was performed by one of her entertainers, and she smiled in proof that her faith was grounded on their righteousness. She was indeed a mere girl. Her short scarlet upper lip showed her teeth with piquant innocence. As much a creature of the woods as a doe, her lot had been that primitive struggle which knows nothing about the amenities and proprieties of civilization. This Brown could clearly see, and he addressed her with the same protecting patronage he would have used with the child.

“What's your kid's name?”

“Grégoire, but he call himself Gougou. Me, I am Françoise La France.”

“Yes, I know that. You have had a hard time since Joe died.”

“I been anxion”—she clasped her hands and looked pleadingly at him—“I been very anxion!”

“Well, you're all right now.”

“You let me do de mend'? I can sew. I use' learn to sew when I have t'ing to sew on.”

“Jerusalem! look at them shirts on the line! We have more clothes to sew on than any dude at the hotels. And it that isn't enough, I'll make Puttany strip and stay in the brush while you do his clothes.”

Françoise widened her smile.

“I've been thinking we'll have to build you a house right over there.” Her entertainer indicated the shore behind her.

“Oppos'?” exclaimed Françoise, turning with pleased interest. Even in her husband's lifetime little thought had ever been taken for her.

“Yes, directly opposite. We can fix it up snug like our winter camp at the other end of the lake.”

“Have you two camp?”

“Yes—a winter camp and a summer camp. But we have stayed comfortably here in the cook-tent until the thermometer went fourteen degrees below zero. We'll sleep in it till we get your house done, and you can take the tent. If there are no parties wanting guides, we might as well begin it in the morning.”

“But,” faltered Françoise, “afterw'iles when de ice is t'ick, and you go to de hudder camp—”

“Oh, we'll take care of you,” he promised. “You and Gougou will go with us. We couldn't leave you on this side.”

“In de dark nights,” shuddered Françoise.

“You needn't be afraid, any time. When we are off daring the day we always leave Jess and Jim to guard the camp. Jess is a Scotch collie and Jim is a blood-hound. He's there in the kennel. Neither man nor varmint would have any chance with them.”

“I been use' to live alone when my husban' is away, M'sieu' Brownee. I not 'fraid like you t'ink. But if Gougou be cold and hongry.”

“Now that's enough,” said Brown, with gentle severity. “Gougou will never be cold and hungry again while there's a stick of wood to be cut on the shores of this lake, or any game to bag, or a 'lunge to spear through the ice. We get about two days' lumbering a week down by St. Ignace. No use to work more than two days a week,” he explained, jocosely. “That gives us enough to live on; and everybody around here owes us from fifty to a hundred dollars back pay for work, anyhow. I've bought this ground, twenty acres of it, and another year I'm going to turn it into a garden.”

“Oh, a garden, M'sieu' Brownee! Me, I love some garden! I plant honion once, salade also.”

“But I want to get my fences built before I put in improvements. You know what the silver rule is, don't you?”

“No, m'sieu',” answered Françoise, vaguely. She knew little of any rule.

“The silver rule is different from the golden rule. It's 'Do your neighbors, or your neighbors will do you.' If I don't protect myself, all the loose cattle around Brevoort will graze over me. Every fellow for himself. We can't keep the golden rule. We'd never get rich if we did.”

“You are rich mans?” interrogated Françoise, focussing her curiosity on that invisible power of wealth.

“Millionaires,” brazenly claimed the young man, as he put an earthen-ware pitcher on the table. “Set there, you thousand-dollar dish! We don't have a yacht on the lake because we prefer small boats, and we go out as guides to have fun with the greenhorns. The cooking at the hotels is good enough for common hunters and fishermen who come here from the cities to spend their money, but it isn't good enough for me. You've come to the right place, you may make your mind easy on that.”

Françoise smiled because he told her to make her mind easy, not because she understood the irony of his poverty. To have secure shelter, and such a table as he spread, and the prowess to achieve continual abundant sustenance from the world, made wealth in her eyes. She was as happy as Gougou when this strange family, gathered from three or four nations, sat down to their first meal.

The sun went low like a scarlet egg, probing the mother-of-pearl lake with a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved in mist as in a dream—foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to push in upon the land.

Françoise slept the sleep of a healthy woman, with her child on her arm, until at dawn the closed flap of the tent yielded to a bounding shape. She opened her startled eyes to see Jim the blood-hound at the foot of the bed, jerking the mosquito-netting. He growled at the interlopers, not being able in his canine mind to reconcile their presence with his customary duty of waking his masters in that tent. A call and a whistle at the other side of the camp drew him away doubting. But in a day both he and Jess had adopted the new members of the family and walked at Gougou's heels.

Gougou existed in wonderland. He regarded the men as great and amiable powers, who could do what they pleased with the elements and with the creatures of the earth. They had a fawn, which had followed Brown home along the beach, feeding on leaves from his hand. They had built it a sylvan home of cedar boughs behind the camp, from which it wandered at will. And though at first shy of Gougou, the pretty thing was soon induced to stand upon its hind feet and dance for bits of cake. His Indian blood yearned towards the fawn; but Methuselah, the mighty turtle, was more exciting. Methuselah lived a prisoner in one side of the bait-tank, from which he was lifted by a rope around his tail. He was so enormous that it required both Brown and Puttany to carry him up the bank, and as he hung from the pole the sudden projection of his snapping head was a danger. When he fastened his teeth into a stick, the stick was hopelessly his as long as he chose to keep it. He was like an elephant cased in mottled shell, and the serrated ridge on his tail resembled a row of huge brown teeth. Methuselah was a many-wrinkled turtle. When he contracted, imbedding head in shoulders and legs in body, revealing all his claws and showing wicked little eyes near the point of his nose, his helpless rage stirred all the Indian; he was the most deliciously devilish thing that Gougou had ever seen.