_ BOOK II. AMERICA
CHAPTER VI. MAIZE
"Ola! Jean Breboeuf," called out Du Mesne to that worthy, who presently appeared, breathing hard from his climb up the river bluff. "Know you what has been concluded?"
"No; how should I guess?" replied Jean Breboeuf. "Or, at least, if I should guess, what else should I guess save that we are to take boat at once and set back to Montreal as fast as we may? But that--what is this? Whose house is that yonder?"
"'Tis our own,
mon enfant," replied Du Mesne, dryly. "'Twas perhaps the property of the Iroquois a moon ago. A moon before that time the soil it stands on belonged to the Illini. To-day both house and soil belong to us. See; here stood the village. There are the cornfields, cut and trampled by the Iroquois. Here are the kettles of the natives--"
"But, but--why--what is all this? Why do we not hasten away?" broke in Jean Breboeuf.
"Pish! We do not go away. We remain where we are."
"Remain? Stay here, and be eaten by the Iroquois? Nay! not Jean Breboeuf."
Du Mesne smiled broadly at his terrors, and a dry grin even broke over the features of the impassive old trapper, Tete Gris.
"Not so fast with your going away, Jean, my brother," said Du Mesne. "Thou'rt ever hinting of corn and the bean; now see what can be done in this garden-place of the Iroquois and the Illini. You are appointed head gardener for the post!"
"Messieurs,
me voila," said Jean Breboeuf, dropping his hands in despair. "Were I not the bravest man in all New France I should leave you at this moment. It is mad, quite mad you are, every one of you! I, Jean Breboeuf, will remain, and, if necessary, will protect. Corn, and perhaps the bean, ye shall have; perhaps oven some of those little roots that the savages dig and eat; but, look you, this is but because you are with one who is brave.
Enfin, I go. I bend me to the hoe, here in this place, like any peasant."
"An excellent hoe can be made from the blade bone of an elk, as the woman Wabana will perhaps show you if you like," said Pierre Noir, derisively, to his comrade of the paddle.
"Even so," said Jean Breboeuf. "I make me the hoe. Could I have but thee, old Pierre, to sit on a stump and fright the crows away, I make no doubt that all would go well with our husbandry. I had as lief go
censitaire for Monsieur L'as as for any seignieur on the Richelieu; of that be sure, old Pierre."
"Faith," replied the latter, "when it comes to frightening crows, I'll even agree to sit on a stump with my musket across my knees and watch you work. 'Tis a good place for a sentinel--to keep the crows from picking yet more bones than these which will embarrass you in your hoeing, Jean Breboeuf."
"He says the Richelieu, Du Mesne," broke in John Law, musingly. "Very far away it sounds. I wonder if we shall ever see it again, with its little narrow farms. But here we have our own trails and our own lands, and let us hope that Monsieur Jean shall prosper in his belated farming. And now, for the rest of us, we must look presently to the building of our houses."
Thus began, slowly and in primitive fashion, the building of one of the first cities of the vast valley of the Messasebe; the seeds of civilization taking hold upon the ground of barbarism, the one supplanting the other, yet availing itself of that other. As the white men took over the crude fields of the departed savages, so also they appropriated the imperfect edifice which the conquerors of those savages had left for them. It was in little the story of old England herself, builded upon the races and the ruins of Briton, and Koman, and Saxon, of Dane and Norman.
Under the direction of Law, the walls of the old war house were strengthened with an inner row of palisades, supporting an embankment of earth and stone. The overlap of the gate was extended into a re-entrant angle, and rude battlements were erected at the four corners of the inclosure. The little stream of unfailing water was led through a corner of the fortress. In the center of the inclosure they built the houses; a cabin for Law, one for the men, and a larger one to serve as store room and as trading place, should there be opportunity for trade.
It was in these rude quarters that Law and his companion established that which was the nearest approach to a home that either for the time might claim; and it was thus that both undertook once more that old and bootless human experiment of seeking to escape from one's own self. Silent now, and dutifully obedient enough was this erstwhile English beauty, Mary Connynge; yet often and often Law caught the question of her gaze. And often enough, too, he found his own questioning running back up the water trails, and down the lakes and across the wide ocean, in a demand which, fiercer and fiercer as it grew, he yet remained too bitter and too proud to put to the proof by any means now within his power. Strange enough, savage enough, hopeless enough, was this wild home of his in the wilderness of the Messasebe.
The smoke of the new settlement rose steadily day by day, but it gave signal for no watching enemy. All about stretched the pale green ocean of the grasses, dotted by many wild flowers, nodding and bowing like bits of fragile flotsam on the surface of a continually rolling sea. The little groves of timber, scattered here and there, sheltered from the summer sun the wild cattle of the plains. The shorter grasses hid the coveys of the prairie hens, and on the marsh-grown bayou banks the wild duck led her brood. A great land, a rich, a fruitful one, was this that lay about these adventurers.
A soberness had come over the habit of the master mind of this little colony. His hand took up the ax, and forgot the sword and gun. Day after day he stood looking about him, examining and studying in little all the strange things which he saw; seeking to learn as much as might be of the timorous savages, who in time began to straggle back to their ruined villages; talking, as best he might, through such interpreting as was possible, with savages who came from the west of the Messasebe, and from the South and from the far Southwest; hearing, and learning and wondering of a land which seemed as large as all the earth, and various as all the lands that lay beneath the sun--that West, so glorious, so new, so boundless, which was yet to be the home of countless hearth-fires and the sites of myriad fields of corn. Let others hunt, and fish, and rob the Indians of their furs, after the accepted fashion of the time; as for John Law, he must look about him, and think, and watch this growing of the corn.
He saw it fairly from its beginning, this growth of the maize, this plant which never yet had grown on Scotch or English soil; this tall, beautiful, broad-bladed, tender tree, the very emblem of all fruitfulness. He saw here and there, dropped by the careless hand of some departed Indian woman, the little germinating seeds, just thrusting their pale-green heads up through the soil, half broken by the tomahawk. He saw the clustering green shoots--numerous, in the sign of plenty--all crowding together and clamoring for light, and life, and air, and room. He saw the prevailing of the tall and strong upthrusting stalks, after the way of life; saw the others dwarf and whiten, and yet cling on at the base of the bolder stem, parasites, worthless, yet existing, after the way of life.
He saw the great central stalks spring boldly up, so swiftly that it almost seemed possible to count the successive leaps of progress. He saw the strong-ribbed leaves thrown out, waving a thousand hands of cheerful welcome and assurance--these blades of the corn, so much mightier than any blades of steel. He saw the broad beckoning banners of the pale tassels bursting out atop of the stalk, token of fecundity and of the future. He caught the wide-driven pollen as it whitened upon the earth, borne by the parent West Wind, mother of increase. He saw the thickening of the green leaf at the base, its swelling, its growth and expansion, till the indefinite enlargement showed at length the incipient ear.
He noted the faint brown of the ends of the sweetly-enveloping silk of the ear, pale-green and soft underneath the sheltering and protecting husk, He found the sweet and milk-white tender kernels, row upon row, forming rapidly beneath the husk, Mud saw at length the hardening and darkening of the husk at its free end, which told that man might pluck and eat.
And then he saw the fading of the tassels, the darkening of the silk and the crinkling of the blades; and there, borne on the strong parent stem, he noted now the many full-rowed ears, protected by their husks and heralded by the tassels and the blades. "Come, come ye, all ye people! Enter in, for I will feed ye all!" This was the song of the maize, its invitation, its counsel, its promise.
Under the warped lodge frames which the fires of the Iroquois had spared, there were yet visible clusters of the ears of last year's corn. Here, under his own eye, were growing yet other ears, ripe for the harvesting and ripe for the coming growth. A strange spell fell upon the soul of Law. Visions crossed his mind, born in the soft warm air of these fecundating winds, of this strange yet peaceful scene.
At times he stood and looked out from the door of the palisade, when the prairie mists were rising in the morning at the mandate of the sun, and to his eyes these waving seas of grasses all seemed beckoning fields of corn. These smokes, coming from the broken tepees of the timid tribesmen, surely they arose from the roofs of happy and contented homes! These wreaths and wraiths of the twisting and wide-stalking mists, surely these were the captains of a general husbandry! Ah, John Law, John Law! Had God given thee the right feeling and contented heart, happy indeed had been these days in this new land of thine own, far from ignoble strivings and from fevered dreams, far from aimless struggles and unregulated avarice, far from oppression and from misery, far from bickerings, heart-burnings and envyings! Ah, John Law! Had God but given thee the pure and well-contented heart! For here in the Messasebe, that Mind which made the universe and set man to be one of its little inhabitants--surely that Mind had planned that man should come and grow in this place, tall and strong, and fruitful, useful to all the world, even as this swift, strong growing of the maize. _