Part 3

The moon rays touched something in the rubbish at the further end of the room that reflected a dull light. After restraining my curiosity for some time, I arose, crossed the floor, and picked up a strange looking box. It was about fourteen inches long, nine inches high, and a foot wide. Its hasp and small handle on the cover appeared to be of wrought iron, but the embossed facing that covered the sides and ends, and the strips that protected the edges, were of brass, studded with nails of the same metal. It seemed in the dim light to be much corroded by time.

Hoping that something might be learned of its history in the morning, I placed the box on the floor near the bed, and was finally lulled to belated slumber by the crickets in the crevices of the logs, and the rustlings of tiny feet among the contents of the cradle. Speculations regarding the brass bound box softly blended into dreams.

During breakfast the next morning my host told me that the box had once belonged to a Jesuit priest; some Indians who formerly lived on the island had given it to his grandfather, and it had been in the attic ever since the house was built. He had often looked at its contents but could make nothing of them, and considered that “they were not of much account.” He said he would be glad to have me go through them and see if they were of any value. He also said that there was a bundle of old papers in the oak chest that he hoped I would look over, as his grandfather had written much concerning the river and the Indians that might interest me.

Filled with anticipation of congenial occupation during the rainy day, I went with Buck to the attic after breakfast. We dragged a decrepit walnut table to the window and dusted it carefully. Buck brought from the chest a small bundle that was tied up in brown paper and left it with me. The tenant of the muff had decamped, probably resenting the intrusion into his domain. I brought the brass bound box, found a comfortable hickory chair, lighted a tranquilizing pipe, and was soon absorbed in the stack of closely written manuscript that I found in the bundle.

Some parts of it were illegible and the spelling was unique. The old man probably considered correct spelling to be an accomplishment of mere literary hacks, and that it was not necessary for an author who had anything else to think of to pay much attention to it.

There was much information regarding the Indian occupation of the river country. It appeared that there were about fifty wigwams on the island when the red men were compelled to leave by the government. Most of them were taken to a reservation out west, and a number went to some lands of their kindred along the St. Joseph river in Michigan. Eventually a few returned and lived in scattered isolation, but their tribal organization was broken up.

The head of the village on Jerry Island was a venerable warrior named “Hot Ashes.” He was a friend of Buck’s grandfather, and it was he who gave him the brass bound box when the Indians left. He said it had been brought to the island by the “Black Robe” many years before, and that he had left it in the mission house when he went away.

The box had been treasured by the Indians, for it was supposed for a long time to be a “great medicine,” but when they departed they considered it a useless burden. There had been much misfortune after the Black Robe left and their faith in its powers gradually ceased.

The going away of the kindly priest was much mourned by his dusky flock. He was supposed to have departed on some mysterious errand, and to have met fatality in the woods, but they were never able to find any traces of him.

Hot Ashes believed that the Black Robe had a great trouble, as, before his disappearance, he neglected the work of his mission for several days, and walked about on the island, carrying a little bundle which he was seen to throw into the river the day he left.

There was no further reference in the manuscript to the Black Robe, or to the brass bound box, which I now opened.

There were two compartments, divided into sections, one on either side of a larger opening in the middle. These contained various small articles. Two of them fitted low square bottles, one of which was half filled with a black powdery substance. On the label, that fell off when I removed the bottle, I deciphered the word ENCRE. Experiment justified the conclusion that the powder had been added to water when ink was needed. A dry coating on the inside of the other bottle indicated that it had been used for this purpose.

In a larger section were some beads that were once a rosary, fragments of a silk cord that had held them together, and a crucifix.

At the center of each end of the box, were half circular rests, probably designed to hold a chalice. The space contained a breviary, bound in leather, and much worn, some ink stained quill pens, a small box of fine sand that had been used for blotting, and some loosely folded papers. They consisted mostly of letters from the Superior of the Mission, and pertained to routine affairs, suggestions regarding the work of the little mission, and congratulations on its successful progress.

Comparison of the depth of the opening with the outside of the box revealed the existence of a secret space, and it was only after long study and experiment that I discovered the means of access to it. On lifting its cover I found a flexible cloth covered book and a letter enclosed in oiled silk, that was much tattered.

The book, which was yellow with age, and frayed at the edges, contained closely written pages in French, many of them much faded, obscure, and in some places entirely obliterated.

The chirography was in the main neat and methodical, but apparently the writing had been done under many varying conditions that made uniformity impossible. Several small drawings were scattered through the text. Some of them showed considerable skill and care, and the others were rough topographic sketches and memorandums of routes.

The book was the journal of Pierre de Lisle, a young Jesuit missionary who left France in 1723 to carry salvation to the heathen in the remote wilderness of the new continent.

The early entries related to his novitiate in Paris, his work in the Jesuit college, and the preparations for his departure for America. They reflected his hopes for the success of his perilous undertaking.

There were vague references to a deep affliction, and to periods of heart sickness and mental depression, by reason of which he had taken the long and difficult path of self denial and self effacement that led him into the activities of the Society of Jesus.

He had spent the required years in the subjugation of the flesh and the sanctification of mind and soul, when he went on board the vessel that was to take him to Quebec.

In the hope of finding a clue to Pierre’s sorrow, I extracted the letter from its silk covering. It had evidently been cherished through the vicissitudes of purification and the perils of arduous journeyings. It was signed by Marie d’Aubigney, and told of her love, that was undying but hopeless, and of her approaching compulsory marriage to “M. le Marquis.” His name did not appear in the letter.

Mingled with the musty odor of the ancient missive, I thought I detected a faint lingering perfume—at least there was one in the message, if not in the paper that bore it.

Several pages of the journal were devoted to the tempestuous voyage across the Atlantic, and a gloomy week spent in the fog off the Grand Banks. The vessel finally reached Quebec, where Pierre reported to the Superior of the Canadian Mission.

He and several other missionaries, accompanied by voyageurs and Indian guides, made a long and eventful trip up the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers to Georgian Bay. They skirted its shores to Lake Huron, where a violent gale scattered their boats, and wrecked two of them.

After much danger and hardship the party landed on the wild coast, but the food supplies had been lost in the turbulent waters. In an attempt to find sustenance, Pierre and one companion wandered a considerable distance from the camp and lost their way in a snowstorm. They found an Indian village that had been depopulated by small pox, and took refuge in one of the squalid huts, where they were besieged by a pack of wolves for several days. Had it not been for some scraps of dried fish that they fortunately found in the hut, they would have starved. They were finally rescued, and Pierre ascribed their deliverance to St. Francis.

The Indians succeeded in killing some game in the woods, and, after a hazardous journey, the party reached Mackinac. Pierre went from there to Green Bay. He stayed a few months and departed for the mission on the St. Joseph river, where he remained a year.

The journal gave many details of his life as an assistant at this mission, where he baptized numerous converts, and greatly increased the attendance at the mission school.

In the hope of enlarging his usefulness, he sent a letter to Quebec, asking permission to found a new mission among the Indians inhabiting the river country south of the St. Joseph. With the doubtful means of communication the letter was a long time in reaching its destination, and he had about given up hope when a favorable reply came.

With one of his converts as a guide, he departed for the field of his new labors. They ascended the St. Joseph in a canoe, made the portage from its headwaters, and descended the Kankakee.

Frequent mention was made in the journal of the faithful guide, who proved invaluable, and of the beautiful scenery of the route. Camps were pitched on the verdant banks at night, but once, in passing through one of the vast marshes, they lost the uncertain channel and were compelled to sleep in the canoe.

They stopped at a few Indian villages along the river and were received with kindness. The journey was continued down stream beyond Jerry Island. The populous communities above and below that point commended it to his judgment. He returned and began the work of establishing his mission.

Although he found the manifold vices of paganism in the villages, he was treated with bountiful hospitality. Successive feasts were prepared in his honor, in which boiled dog was the “piece de resistance.” Willing hands assisted in the construction of the mission house, and the date of the first mass was recorded in the journal.

There was much sickness among the Indians when Pierre came, the nature of which did not appear. Orgies and incantations continued day and night to conjure away the epidemic. He performed the consolatory offices of his church in the afflicted wigwams. Soon after his arrival practically all of the sickness disappeared. Their recovered health convinced the credulous savages that the Black Robe possessed a mysterious power, and the small bottle of black powder was thought to be a mighty magic.

Ink has swayed the destinies of countless millions, but here its potency seems to have played a strange role.

Much of the journal was devoted to happenings that now seem trivial, but to the zealous disciple of Loyola—a protagonist of his faith on a spiritual frontier—they were of great moment. Detached from their contemporary human associations, events must affect the emotions or the interests of the mass of mankind if their records endure.

Pierre assisted in the councils, gave advice on temporal affairs, and patiently inculcated the precepts of his religion in the minds of his primitive flock. Impressive baptisms and beautiful deaths were noted at length. Converts who strayed from the fold, and were induced to return, were given much space.

Here and there poetic reflections graced the faded pages, and pious musings were recorded. Original verse, and quotations from favorite authors, that seemed inspired by melancholy hours, mingled with the text. The names of the various saint’s days were often used as captions for the entries, instead of calendar dates.

In the back of the book was a list of names of converts, dates of baptism, marriages and deaths, and a vocabulary of about three hundred words of the Pottowatomie dialect of the Algonquin language, with their French equivalents. Variations in the chirography indicated that the lists had grown gradually, as additions were made with different pens.

A gloomy spirit seemed to pervade the dim pages. The broken heart of Pierre de Lisle throbbed between the lines of the story of his life in the wilderness. He had carried his cross to the far places, and, in isolation, he yearned for the healing balm of forgetfulness on his fevered soul. There were evidences of a great mental conflict among the last entries. He mentioned the arrival at the island of Jacques Le Moyne, a Jesuit priest, who was on his way to a distant post on the Mississippi, and spent several weeks with him. They had been boyhood friends in France and had entered the Jesuit college at about the same time. His coming was a breath of life from the outer world.

Le Moyne told him of the death of the Marquis de Courcelles, whose existence had darkened Pierre’s life, and all of the precepts, tenets, and pageantry of the Church of Rome floated away as mists before a freshening wind.

Pierre was born again. The dormant life currents quickened, and his virile soul and body exulted in emancipation and new found hope.

The entries in the journal closed with a sorrowful farewell to his spiritual charges, of which they probably never knew, and an expression of pathetic gratitude to his friend Jacques, who had opened a gate between desolation and earthly paradise, for warm arms in France were reaching across the stormy seas, and into the wilds of the new world for Pierre de Lisle.

It seemed strange that he had left the journal and the letter of Marie d’Aubigney. He was probably obsessed by his one dominant thought, and naturally excluded everything not needed for his long journey, but if his mind had not been much perturbed and confused he might have taken or destroyed the journal, but he surely would have carried the precious letter with him.

The little bundle that he threw into the river, the day he left the island, may have contained his sacramental chalice, for in it his lips had found bitter waters.

He probably dissembled his apostasy and utilized such Jesuit facilities as were available in getting back to his native land, lulling his conscience with one of the maxims of the Society of Jesus—“the end justifies the means”—but be that as it may, the chronicles in the attic had come to an end.

I sat for a long time, listening to the patter of the rain on the old roof, and mused over the frail memorials.

There is but one great passion in the world. With it all human destiny is entwined. Votaries of established religion have ever been recruited from the disconsolate. The gray walls of convents and monasteries have lured the heart stricken, and in remote fields of pious endeavor unguents have been sought for cruel wounds. In the waste places of the earth have been scattered the ashes of despair, but while life lasts, it somewhere holds the eternal chords. At hope’s vibrant touch the enfeebled strings awake and attune to the sublime strains of the Great Lyric.

The faint echo of a song lingered in the brass bound box. The silk covered letter intoned a dream melody that the years had not hushed.

IV THE “WETHER BOOK” OF BUCK GRANGER’S GRANDFATHER

My friend “Buck” told me something of his grandfather’s history as we sat in the genial glow of the stone fireplace the evening after I had examined the contents of the brass bound box.

The old pioneer, with his wife and two sons, had come west in 1810 and located on the island. He found many Indians there and his relations with them were very friendly. A small area was cleared and cultivated on the island, but the main source of livelihood was hunting, fishing and trapping. The woods and waters teemed with life and nature yielded easily of her abundance.

The old man lived alone for many years after the death of his wife. His sons married and went farther west. Two years before he died one of the sons, Buck’s father, returned with his wife and little boy, to the old home. Buck was now the only surviving member of the family.

His recollections of his grandfather were rather vague. He remembered him as an old man with a white bushy beard, frowsy coon skin cap, ear muffs, and fur mittens. He had spent much time with him fishing along the river, and in trips through the woods. From him he had learned the ways of the big marsh, and much of the unwritten lore of the forest. His stories of the old pioneer gave an impression of one who was much given to having his own way, rather crusty at times, but whose sympathy and kindness of heart were often imposed upon by those who knew him.

Buck said that in the old oak chest in the attic was a lot of stuff that had belonged to his grandfather. We went to the attic the next morning and took out of the chest the odd assortment of things we found in it. Most of them were of no special interest. There were some old account books, several cancelled promissory notes for small amounts, and a package of receipts. One note, payable to the old man, was marked across its face “Debt forgiven—Can’t Collect.”

I was pleased to find a bag of Indian arrow heads, many of them beautifully made, a couple of spear heads, and a tomahawk.

There was a section of a maple tree root, about a foot long, in the chest, that Buck said he had chopped out one winter in the woods near the marsh. A steel trap was imbedded in it, and between the jaws were two bones of a coon’s foot. The uneven hammer marks on the metal indicated that the trap was probably home forged. Buck had identified it as one belonging to his grandfather, and there were others like it in the chest. Apparently the victim had dragged the trap to the foot of the tree, which it was unable to climb. He had died with his leg across the young exposed root that had grown around and through the mechanism, until only a portion of the rusty chain, the end of the spring, and the upper parts of the jaws that held the little bones remained. The story of the tragedy was plainly told.

In the bottom of the chest was a thick leather bound book. On the cover was some crude lettering in black ink, with labored attempts at ornamentation. On removing the dust I deciphered the inscription:

WETHER BOOK—JOSIAH GRANGER

Evidently its author had spent much time in keeping a record of the weather and of his life on the island. Innumerable thermometer readings filled columns at the right of the pages. After most of the dates were weather observations, comments on intrusive friends, and various things that had come within the sphere of a lonely existence.

Diaries are pictures of character—unsafe repositories of intimate personal things that enlighten and betray. Among the pages were traces of petty jealousies and much harmless egotism. Here and there were patches of sunlight, touches of irony and unconscious humor. At times a tinge of pathos shadowed the lines of the “wether book,” and under it all was the human story of one who, in this humble form of expression, had sought relief from solitude.

As I perused the faded chronicles the figure of the old man, sitting before his fire at night, with his pipe and almanac, diligently recording the happenings of the days that passed in his little world, seemed a reality.

The record covered a number of years, but extracts from the entries of 1852 will convey a general idea of the contents of the old book.

_Jan 1st_—This is the first of the yeare & I start in not very well. Cold prevales & a good dele of snow. Snow drifts stacked around the house. Cant see out. I stay mostly in my blankett.

_Jan 10th_—Lots of snow. Froze hard last nite. Big wind. Stade in & must hole up for rest of winter if this keaps up. Rumetiziam bad. Hiram Barnes com today with feet froze. It is blowing bad. Looks worse outside. Moon eclips was predicted for the 8th but nuthing of the kind sene.

_Jan 12th_—I notis by my almanack Lady J. Gray behedded today in 1555 but what for does not say & hevy rain storms predicted but nuthing of the kind. It has never ben colder. I got to melt som more snow and get the pump going. She is froze hard.

_Jan 14th_—Was out som today & it looks thawy. Thaw coming. Som deer traks on iland. Will get after deer soon.

_Jan 16th_—Got a buck today & fixed the meat. Sunup & Sunsett both according to clock. Evrything on skedule. Som sweling white cloudds off in W. The cold abates som.

_Jan 20_—We are geting storms in these parts & a good dele of wether comes at nite. Som days are cleare & cold with merkery stedy at Zero. The moon is around but nites dark & clouddy. Moon must hav ben full the 7th but not sene.

_Jan 31st_—Month closes mild yet flying snow. River ice som places over a ft. thick. This has ben a remarkabel month. Thare was too much wether in Jan. The merkery gets funny now and then. I dont think eny thermomter is akkerate.

_Feb 2nd_—Big thaw has com & erly in the morning a shour of rain. Got a buck on the ice at the marsh & got the meat home late. This was yesterdy. Snow is all mushy. This has ben a quere day. It is now 5 P.M.

_Feb 3rd_—Snow flurrys mixed with rain. Ice braking som. I heare meney cracks out on the river. As I sett down to rite in my wether book I beleve the back bone of the winter is broke.

_Feb 5–6–7–8–9–10_—Had 1 nice brite day & ever sence a whopping big storm. Big drifts. Cant see out. Must get some backake ointmint. Full moon was on the 5th. Good thing I got a lot of wood in. I notis in my almanack storms probabel this month & this is rite.

_Feb 15th_—Out yesterdy & 20 inches snow in woods. Shot 3 patriches near the house. Wolves yelld all nite. Sene gese flying N. but they beter go back. It is warmer thow. Som deer crossed river last nite. This is being a remarkabel month. Cool & misty air prevales as I rite.

_Feb 20_—I was down to the marsh. This was yesterdy. Got 36 rats from 42 trapps. 2 trapps lost. Som rat houses near chanel butted out by ice moving along. Sene som gese very high going N. One I think was a flock of swanns. Fogg & sleat tonite.

_Feb 21–22–23–24–25_—All bad days. G. Washington had a birthday on the 22nd. That was my birthday too. The politicks would make him sick if he could see them now. Thares lots of dead pepil that would not like what is now going on, and we would not like som things they done if we was thare.

_Feb 28_—Snow most gone & hard rain. Lot of ice moving in river. I sene 4 flocks gese 5 of ducks, mostly bloobills. Thare has ben few deer this winter. I got 2 bucks & 1 doe all fat in good condition & I got a small bear. This was over neare Wild Catt Swamp on the 18th & I forgot to rite it down. Old Josiah & the dog was thare on that date.

_Feb 29th_—This is leap yeare. Hav not ben out today. I am geting throw the winter all rite. Feb a changabel month. It closes with foggs & high water. S. Conkrite com today on his way to the marsh. His noos is Ed Baxter & Fanny Noonan got marrid Jan 6th. Probly she asked him. Wether tonite looks thick. Cloudds both big & black are in the West.

_March 5th_—Gese coming rite along now & thousans of ducks. Rats on the marsh ben prety fare. Got a lot so far but probly will find prices bad. Your uncle Josiah was all over the oak tract in boat for malards. Got over 50. He had on his shooting shirt. They was after the acorns in about 2 ft. of watter. This was yesterdy. Meney ducks going on N. & som gese gone too but som will stay & make nests.

_March 11th_—2 egals lit today on the iland & stade around all P.M. They may think of nesting heare. Old Josiah will take a popp at them. Dense cloudds are around.