第29章 Two Pioneers(3)
"It's better than medicine,"said Ninon,after the tenth day,as,wan with watching,she held the cool hand of one of the recovering men in her own."If we had had medicines we should have killed these men.""You are a woman of remarkable sense,"said the holy father,who was eating a dish of corn-meal and milk that Ninon had just prepared,"and a woman also of Christian courage.""Christian courage?"echoed Ninon;"do you think that is what you call it?I am not afraid,no,not I;but it is not Christian courage.You mistake in calling it that."There were tears in her eyes.The priest saw them.
"God lead you at last into peaceful ways,"said he,softly,lifting one hand in blessing.
"Your vigil is ended.Go to your home and sleep.You know the value of the temporal life that God has given to man.
In the hours of the night,Ninon,think of the value of eternal life,which it is also His to give."Ninon stared at him a moment with a dawning horror in her eyes.
Then she pointed to the table.
"Whatever you do,"said she,"don't forget the bear's grease."And she went out laughing.The priest did not pause to recommend her soul to further blessing.
He obeyed her directions.
March was wearing away tediously.The river was not yet open,and the belated boats with needed supplies were moored far down the river.Many of the reduced settlers were dependent on the meat the Indians brought them for sustenance.The mud made the roads almost impassable;for the frost lay in a solid bed six inches below the surface,and all above that was semi-liquid muck.Snow and rain alternated,and the frightful disease did not cease its ravages.
The priest got little sleep.Now he was at the bed of a little half-breed child,smoothing the straight black locks from the narrow brow;now at the cot of some hulking trapper,who wept at the pain,but died finally with a grin of bravado on his lips;now in a foul tepee,where some grave Pawnee wrapped his mantle about him,and gazed with prophetic and unflinching eyes into the land of the hereafter.
The little school that the priest started had been long since abandoned.It was only the preservation of life that one thought of in these days.And recklessness had made the men desperate.To the ravages of dis-ease were added horrible murders.Moral health is always low when physical health is so.
Give a nation two winters of grippe,and it will have an epidemic of suicide.Give it starvation and small-pox,and it will have a contagion of murders.There are subtle laws underlying these things,--laws which the physicians think they can explain;but they are mistaken.The reason is not so material as it seems.
But spring was near in spite of falling snow and the dirty ice in the river.There was not even a flushing of the willow twigs to tell it by,nor a clearing of the leaden sky,--only the almanac.Yet all men were looking forward to it The trappers put in the feeble days of convalescence,making long rafts on which to pile the skins dried over winter,--a fine variety,worth all but their weight in gold.Money was easily got in those days;but there are circumstances under which money is valueless.
Father de Smet thought of this the day before Easter,as he plunged through the mud of the winding street in his bearskin gaiters.Stout were his legs,firm his lungs,as he turned to breathe in the west wind;clear his sharp and humorous eyes.He was going to the little chapel where the mission school had previously been held.
Here was a rude pulpit,and back of it a much-disfigured virgin,dressed in turkey-red calico.Two cheap candles in their tin sticks guarded this figure,and beneath,on the floor,was spread an otter-skin of perfect beauty.The seats were of pine,without backs,and the wind whistled through the chinks between the logs.Moreover,the place was dirty.Lenten service had been out of the question.The living had neither time nor strength to come to worship;and the dead were not given the honor of a burial from church in these times of terror.
The priest looked about him in dismay,the place was so utterly forsaken;yet to let Easter go by without recognition was not to his liking.He had been the night before to every house in the settlement,bidding the people to come to devotions on Sunday morning.He knew that not one of them would refuse his invitation.There was no hero larger in the eyes of these unfortunates than the simple priest who walked among them with his unpretentious piety.The promises were given with whispered bless-ings,and there were voices that broke in making them,and hands that shook with honest gratitude.The priest,remembering these things,and all the awful suffering of the winter,determined to make the ser-vice symbolic,indeed,of the resurrection and the life,--the annual resurrection and life that comes each year,a palpable miracle,to teach the dullest that God reigns.
"How are you going to trim the altar?"
cried a voice behind him.
He turned,startled,and in the doorway stood Mademoiselle Ninon,her short skirt belted with a red silk scarf,--the token of some trapper,--her ankles protected with fringed leggins,her head covered with a be-ribboned hat of felt,such as the voyageurs wore.
"Our devotions will be the only decorations we can hang on it.But gratitude is better than blossoms,and humanity more beautiful than green wreaths,"said the father,gently.
It was a curious thing,and one that he had often noticed himself;he gave this woman --unworthy as she was --the best of his simple thoughts.
Ninon tiptoed toward the priest with one finger coquettishly raised to insure secrecy.
"You will never believe it,"she whispered,"no one would believe it!But the fact is,father,I have two lilies.""Lilies,"cried the priest,incredulously,"two lilies?""That's what I say,father --two marvel-lously fair lilies with little sceptres of gold in them,and leaves as white as snow.The bulbs were brought me last autumn by --;that is to say,they were brought from St.Louis.