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K^*

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s-g*

^^'^•■IW^v

'• Thos. Swan "^ Co.,

CATERERS,

- AND -

Restaurateurs, Etc.

THE LEADING LUNCH AND
SAMPLE ROOMS OF THE CITY.

Cor. of Woodward & Lamed Sts., DETROIT, MICH.

Griswold House,

Cor. Griswold and Congress Sis.,

DETROIT, MICH.

The Most Centrally Situated Business Man's and
Family Hotel in the City.

UNEXCEPTIONAL CUISINE.

ALBERT MAXWELL, Proprietor.

^>^^<

■sy

ON'T FAIL
TO VISIT

JI;3C^asi90

ON BELLE ISLE.

.-. ^DETROIT'S BEAUTIFUL ISUND PARK.^.'.

r^-BoTTLCD L*OtR. Ice CrCAM AND J FAI VEY ^^^^^F. A^Poro

at^^ Other SuMMtB RcrncsHMENTS. J. rMUVQT, MANAGER.

Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee

ii-AL.iXi^w-A.Tr.

Th« Shortest and Cheapest Route from

DETROIT TO MILWAUKKK

ST. PAUL. WISCONSIN, MINNESOTA,
DAKOTA AND THE NORTHWEST.

Ask for Tickets by the Grand Haven Route.
Ratss sl^sys ohtapsr than all rail lines.

BEN. FLETCHER.

Traveling Passenger Agent, DETROIT.

THOMAS MANNING,

PROPRIETOR

Ele^apt SaiDple apd Wipe Roorp,

Corner of Woodward Ave. and Atwater St.

BEST OF Wings. UQUORS AND CIGARS, LAGER AND OTHER COOLING

DRINKS.

Convonisnt to Belle Isle Park Ferry.
Ladies' Entrance on Atwater St.

P'^v^-

DESHREE-SHOSCA.

(PIOHTINQ ISLAND.)

Nine Miles belovsr the Gity of Detroit, Michigan.

e
THE NEWEST

DELIGHTFUL SUMMER SHOOTING AND

FISHING RESORT IN THE WEST.

•

NEW FIRST-CLASS HOTEL WITH
ALL MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.

EXCELLENT DUCK AND SNIPE SHOOTING IN SEASON.

OILMAN BROS.,
BARNES & CO

:;t

• • •

PROPRIETORS A.NC>
MANAQERS.

UROPEAN HOTEL " "

Restaurant and Caft ,

10-12-14 MONROE AVENUE,
DETROIT, MICH.

Across the Square from the City Hall.

All Street Car Lines within one minutes walk.

GEO. H. GIES & CO.,

Proprietors.

(;t

Border Canucks:

Our Friendly Relations.

A NOVEL.

GEO. CAMERON RANKIN,

AUTHOR OF

"The Canuck" and Other Plays.

DETROIT, MICH.:

G. C. Rankin, Publisher.

1890.

Ri9

COPTRIOHTBD 1890
BY

CHARLES S. MoDONALD.
All rights rmerved.

■Hi»

DEDICATION.

With Best Wishes for his
Welfare and Advancement, this Book is Dedicated

TO MY Friend,

The Hon. CHARLES W. CASGRAIN,

City Attorney, Detroit, Mich.

THE AUTHOR.

-^ JW ' * v»«*^. "*'•*' ■

CONTENTS.

Faom

Lesdkoxamih 1

MuBiiiiAT Faum 7

A Mai.kdiction and an Inau(m;iiai- Fiiiknih.y Conpaji 19

A Dklkihtkdl Plackto LivK AND Kkkp House in.— A Mixbd

MAKiiiAaE 88

A Uuusii Koii Turc Lead 41

The Widow Mautin and IIeu Pacini T'ony " (JuAPAri) " R7

The Fakeus 69

The Race on the Ice 79

The Widow's Ball 105

A TUIIKEY GOBIILKU PaUENT— An EMllAUKA8flING SON AND HeiU

—A Retuospect— An Ai'olo<iy pou a liwiio, Etc 181

The Vaoauieb op a Domestic Skeleton, and One ov the Rr-

8ULT8 of a Mixed Maiuiiaqe 1 11

A SYiiPii like Alheit Autpul Nluse 178

An Idealistic Stray Sheep 183

FiusT Love's Conspiracy . . . 197

Friendly Relations, ou Ultimate Annexation ? 209

Jacobin Clocks and " Le ciiemin de cuois " 219

A Little Theology and a " Pat Hand " 281

The Suppeh— Petku Bektkand's Toast and Monsieuu IIadee-

show's Reply 249

Reactionery Reflections 259

An International Love Scene 269

A Son op Erin 279

A Devoted Mother and a Penitent Son 288

The Promised Valedictory Visit 291

'yr.:ai±:^ AJa'»,.O . ja ■K ^' fe r;

SSRHMI

. ■«»»•*< ■»"^r^m*"«^*««***'-'

Border Canucks;

OUE FRIENDLY RELATIONS.

CHAPTER I

Les deux amis,

XT WAS the 29tli of Januaiy, 187—, in the city of
-^ Detroit, in the State of Michigan.

The reaction following the busy and joyous Christmas
holiday season was at its height, and dullness held its
dampening sway throughout the retail shops and market
places of the fair metropolis.

It had been snowing in the early morning — a dry, mealy
sort of snow, which did but little to improve the already
tolerably good sleighing.

Now, at eleven o'clock ai the day, the overcast, darken-
ing sky, and surcharged lying clouds gave sign of another
storm near at hand, while the whistling wind wliich rushed
about the four corners, formed by the intersection of the
two broad chief thoroughfares of the city, in boisterous
disturbance, suggested an invisible game of blind man's
buff in full blast.

BORDER CANUCKS.

The horses on the neighboring cab-stand hunched their
backs and bowed their heads as ^ ,11 as their cruel over-
checks would allow, and squeezed their tails between their
hocks as if they fain would squeeze themselves inside of
themselves until the gathering storm rolled by, while frost-
laden blasts came trooping up from the frozen river, and,
arriving at the nearest of the four corners, would suddenly
stop as if disgusted at the abnormal dullness of the streets,
and, gathering up a modicum of the newly-fallen snow, fly
away with it in spiral columns towards the regions whence
it had so recently come.

In the midst of this portentous condition of the elements
a young man wearing a Persian lamb's-fur overcoat and
cap, and driving a grey pony in a well-robed, fashionable
Portland sleigh passed westward down one of the intersecting
streets until he came to a large wholesale and retail store
with an imposing front, when he stopped, got out, and pro-
ceeded to tie the pony to a hitching-post on the curb.

While he was in the act of doing this there came out of
the store a middle-aged looking man, conciderably above
the medium height, with black, or dark brown hair tinged
with grey, and dark blue eyes, having a sad expression in
them until they caught sight of the youth at the pony's
head, when they took on a pleased look, and the whole face
lighted up with good-natured recognition.

He wore a full beard, and his dress was a near approach
to the winter costume of the typical French Canadian
habitant.

His overcoat was of a light brownish-grey, homespun,
secured by a dark red sash about the waist, while his

BORDER CANUCKS. ^ 3

trousers were of a shade lighter color of the same material,
and at the bottom were stuffed inside the short legs of a
pair of shoe pacs On his head he wore a very seedy
muskrat fur cap, and upon his left arm hung a large sized
hand- basket, which upon examination would be found to
contain a couple of empty bags.

As the youth, while carefully covering the pony with a
thick scarlet horse cloth, caught sight of the other, he cried
out in a surprised and pleased tone of voice: "Hello,
Jock, old fellow, I'm awfully glad to see you! I. was just
thinking about you as I drove down."

" Bah gosh, Monsieur Jack," responded the Frenchman,
as he crossed tlje sidewalk towards the youtli, "dat's long
taraAhnot see you. How was you mon cher ami? And
they shook hands demonstratively.

" Oh, I'm all right, thank you Jock," replied the other.
"I don't know how it is that I've happened to miss you
whenever you've been in the city of late. I have heard of
your being in the store twice since Christmas, but I've never
happened to come in either time you were here."

" No, you see Ah've always be een hurray de lass tree
four tam Ah've be on de ceetay."

" Yes, but why more so than usual ? But let's get out of
the wind " suggested the youth, and they went and stood
within the shelter of the ca])acious entrance to the retail
department of the store. " Well, you see," resumed the
Frenchman, ** mah Meeses have not be well lately. She
have de rheumatiss pootay bad, an de two youngess chile
have de meezle, an what wus wuss of all pauvre leetle
Marie have kotch cole wit de fever 'bout a mons ago, an

BORDER CANUCKS.

Ah wus 'fraid she wus goin be very seeck, an so you see
Ah have always be ankshus to got back home soon's Ah
kin whenevaire Ah have be on de ceetay lately."

" "Why, I am real sorry you've been in such trouble,
Jock," exclaimed the youth, sympathetically, " and how
are they now ? "

"Oh, dey wus all raght agin, tank God."

" I am glad to hear it," replied the young man, heartily,
" and my especial little friend Archange, she has not been
ill I hope?"

" Ah, no. Archange she's nevaire seek. You know dey
ses she's look lac me, an dough she doan look lac she's
strong, she wus tuS lac Eengeen rubber."

" I tell you, Jock, that's going to be a pretty girl when
she grows up," exclaimed the youth, admiringly. But I'm
glad to hear Mrs. Laforge and the other sick ones are all
right again, too."

" Ah, yas ! de Meeses she's move 'roun all raght agin, an
Marie, pauvre chile, was work hard all de tarn braiden straw
every day, every day, from de tarn she's got up een de
morning teel she's go to bed at naight. Why, Monsieur
Jack," continued the Frenchman, rousing up, " fur how
much wurt you tink dat leetle Marie could mac een ten
day braiden straw for dees store ? "

"I'm sure I don't know," responded the youth, "but I
do know that she is a remarkably bright and clever little
girl."

" Well sair," said Jock, as if he were giving utterance to
something scarcely credible, "you kin blceve me ou no
jews ypu's mine to, mats Ah have got on mah pockette now

BORDER CANUCKS.

at dees tarn jcwst eight dollaire an seextay cent dat leetle
ting have arne een ten work in day."

•' Eight dollars and sixty cents in ten days," repeated the
youth in surprise, " very nearly a dollar a day ! Well, by
Jove I That is good wages for a little crippled girl of twelve
years old to earn, and no mistake."

"Yas sair," said the Frenchman, proudly, "and heur
braid was always fust-' 'ass. Eet always fatch de bess
prasse. Ah'll toll you she's help keep it de famlay good
deal on dose hard tarn wit me."

"Poor Httle thing," exclaimed the youth, tenderly, "I
must go down and see her and the rest of the family before
I go away."

" Ah ! wus you go 'way, Monsieur Jack ? " enquired the
Frenchman in surprise. *' Excuse moi mon cher, mais
where was you go ? "

" I'm going to New York before the end of the week, and
I wanted in any case to go down and see you about stow-
ing away or disposing of ni}' duck skiff and decoys."

" Aw, yo skeef an de dekye was all een de barn to home,
an dey cood stay dare unteel you wants dem een de spring."

" But I don't think I shall be here in the spring. How-
ever," continued the youth, " I'll tell you all about my
plans when I go down to see you to-morrow or next day, if
it's fine."

" Aw well, dat's all raght den, you goan come an see us
beefor you goes," exclaimed the Frenchman, satisfiedly,
tightening his coat around him and pulling his muskrat
cap down further over his head as he looked up at the
gathering clouds. *' On de meeu tarn, eef Ah doan start

BORDER CANUCKS.

now, bab gosh I Ah bleeve de storm goan kotch me beefor
Ah wus got half ways home," and turning to the youth
with a kindly smile upon his face and outstretched right
hand, he said: "Good-bye Monsieur Jack. Good-bye fur
de pressen," and they shook hands heartily.

"Good-bye Jock till I see you again."

" Mine, we wus goan look fur you to-morrow ou de nex
day fur sure," enjoined the Frenchman. "Goodbye Mon-
sieur Jack," and he hurriedly took his way down the street
towards the ferry that crossed to the Canadian side of the river.

Thus parted, for the time being, these two friends in the
gathering storm — the one Jacques Lafo' ^e to his home on
the River Canard, on the Canadian siae, ten miles below
the city — the other young John Rathbone, the only son of
Mr. Robert Rathbone, the senior partner of the firm of
Rathbone and Ritter, into whose spacious place of business
he now entered.

■MM

1 me beefor
,o the youth
itched right
ood-bye fur

ou de nex
Ddbye Mon-
m the street
3 of the river,
ends in the
bis home on
miles below

only son of
the firm of

of business.

CHAPTER II.

Mushrat Farm.

nPHE FIRM of Rathboneand Ritter were extensive deal-
ers in furs, hats, caps and straw goods and for a quarter
of a century past had held a leading position throughout the
Union as manufacturers of what is known to the trade as
"hand made Mackinaw straw braid." This circumstance it
is presumed was in great measure d ue to the fact of their prox-
imity to an extensive settlement of people whose women
folk from time immemorial have made the braiding of straw
for hats and bonnets an industry of the fireside and home.

The narrow stretch of low-lying country on the Canadian
side extending from Stony Point, on Lake St. Clair, to the
River Canard, a sluggish, turbid stream which empties its
brackish waters into the Detroit River some half dozen miles
above its mouth at the head of Lake Erie (the whole being
about thirty-five miles in length and from three to five miles
in depth from its front on the lake and river), is known upon
the local county maps as the French survey. It is so des-
ignated because of the fact that in common with all other
old French settlements on the continent founded by the fol-
lowers of Lasalleand the Jesuits, it was originally divided off
into tiers, called concessions, of attenuated lots three arjpents*
wide by thirty in depth.

These parieres are still largely occupied by descendants of
the adventurous harbingers of civilization under U regime de

*Au arpent is twelve feet less than a lineal Euglish acre.

I ! /-

BORDER CANUCES.

la Nouvelle France, who with a characteristic quaint conserv-
atism peculiar to their remarkable race, to this day prac-
tice many of the old time customs and still possess many of
the domestic habits which their ancestors sailed from North-
ern France with three hundred years and more ago. In-
deed, there are to this day certain localities throughout this
"French survey" that from a social and religions point of
view are as exclusively French as are any of the canton-
ments or prefectures of old France; and Monsieur Ernest
Gagnon in his commendable compilation "Zes Chansons pop-
ulair du Canada^^ makes what can not but be regarded as an
extraordinary announcement, and that is that the French
Canadians in some respects have been far more conservative
of certain ancient peasant customs extant in France three
hundred years ago, than have their cousins of the mother
country.

However that may be, the Riviere Canard settlement at
the outset of the period of this story was to all intents and
purposes an exclusively French community which counted
among its resident members Jacques Laforge, small farmer,
hunter, trapper, fishermnn and the husband and father re-
spectively of a wife and little crippled daughter, the eldest
of a numerous family, who plaited straw braid, in common
with numerous other wives and daughters of the rural vicin-
age, for Messrs. Eathbone&; Ritter, of Detroit

Monsieur Laforge's farm fronted upon the northwest side
of the highway, running parallel with the Detroit river about
forty rods east from where it crosses the Riviere Canard over
a palsied wooden drawbridge and thence in a northwesterly
direction towards tlic m-ai:^ river for seven or eight acres,

■m

BORDER CANUCKS.

aint conserv-
lis day prac-
sess many of

from North-
•re ago. In-
'oughout this
ions point of
I the canton-
isieur Ernest
Chausonspop-
sgarded as an
t the French

conservative
France three
I the mother

settlement at
I intents and
hich counted
mall farmer,
d father re-
er, the eldest
in common
e rural vicin-

rthwest side
it river about

Canard over
orthwesterly

eight acres,

until all possibility of marking its boundaries is lost amidst
the tall rushes, muskrat hills and stagnant bayous of the
vast marsh, which constitutes the amphibious gore of terri-
tory formed b}'^ the confluence of the two rivers. His deed
called for the usual sized French lot of three arpents in
width by thirty in length — "ninety arpents be the same
more or less" — but not more than twenty-five acres thereof
were ever at any time available for purposes of active cul-
tivation.

The lot had been given our friend before he left the paren-
tal fold by his father, old Emanuel Laforge, a venerable and
courteous, albeit illiterate, habitant of the old school who
still lived on the family homestead some three miles up the
river road in what is known as the "Petite Cote radish set-
tlement."

The old man had bought the land in at tax sale to
strengthen a somewhat shakey title by right of possession
obtained from its previous occupant and when, thirteen years
before the opening of this narrative, after a long drawn-out
boy and girl courtship, Archange Ronseau, aged eighteen,
pretty and good-tempered, had been permitted to marry
Jaques Laforge before he was yet twenty, the latter had
before their marriage contrived to furbish up the tumbled
down premises.

lie had patched up the dilapidated, long unused barn by
stuffing up the open spaces twixt the logs with fresh clay,
replacing the shaky hingeless doors with new ones and
whitewashing the whole with a liberal coating of whitewash.
The prim fowl house and diminutive adjoining woodshed
he subjected to the same process of rejuvenation, and upon

I .)

BORDER CANUCKS.

the dwelling itself he exhausted whatever of ingenuity he
possessed in making out of small means a nest as nearly as
might be, worthy of his young life's lova

The house was of the style of architecture so common in
the rural districts of Quebec.

Indeed it had been originally built by an adventurous
emigrant from that province, who had been in due course
forced into throwing up the sponge to malaria and mosqui-
toes, and selling out his squatter's rights for a nominal figure
to Laforge, pere, had returned to the land of his nativity
with sunken eye and a parched and jaundiced skin.

The building set back from the highway about half an
acre, and was between twenty-five and thirty feet in length
facing the same. About ten feet from either end of its steep
pitched gable roof there popped up a complacent dormer
window like two duely pacified and properly domesticated
Jacks in boxes. With one fell swoop, as it were, this roof
on the side fronting the road extended on down towards the
ground sufficient to cover a veranda, which ran the full
length of the building, and in point of fact the frame of the
veranda was part and parcel of the main structure. The
Dutch school of decoration was employed in its embellish-
ment in that our Benedict yellow-washed the body of the
building and painted the front door, window casings and
banister encircling the balcony a light Prussian blue. Its
foundation was not upon a rock, but upon upright cedar posts
four feet high from the humid ground below with a sta/-
way of five steps at the centre of the veranda in the front
and a corresponding one at the rear side leading to a plat-

BOUDKU CANUCKS.

f ingenuity he
ist as nearly as

so common in

n adventurous

in due course

ia and mosqui-

nominal figure

of his nativity

d skin.

about half an
jr feet in length
end of its steep
Dlacent dormer
y domesticated

were, this roof
5\'n towards the
h ran the full
le frame of the
tructure. The

its embellish-
le body of the
w casings and
sian blue. Its
ght cedar posts
7 with a stajf-
la in the front
iing to a plat-

form lean-to facing the frame kitchen, which projected out
of its back part like a stiff, stubby tail.

Until in later years when these upright foundation posts
were hidden from view by being boarded over, a side view
of the domicile suggested an obese woman, with uplifted
skirts, in the act of crossing a muddy thoroughfare. For
the rest, the main building, which was of hewn, chinked logs,
was alike divided into two compartments upstairs and down-
stairs, the large frame kitchen in the rear being the dming
and living room as well.

This was and is the home in the Canard settlement on the
Detroit River of Jacques Laforge, whose prototype is a
familiar figure in the French parishes scattered along that
portion of the border of the Queen's dominions.

To this home upon the confines of the marshes, regardless
of the buzz and bite of mosquitoes which at certain seasons
seemed to permeate the very gases composing the atmos-
phere of the neighborhood, and despite the inevitable an-
nual shakes of nauseating ague, Mons. Jacques Laforge
brought his amiable young bride.

Here had his devoted wife blossomed forth and made him
a father before quite eleven months had elapsed from their
wedding day with its long procession of holiday vehicles
and their joyous occupants, first to the church and then to
the house of his wife's father, his own paternal roof and the
domiciles of other sympathizing friends and relatives — all
winding up by being bidden au revoir and Godspeed at his
own threshold by an hilarious crowd of merry-makers in the
wee sma' hours of the next succeeding morn.

BORDER CANUCKS.

It all seemed such a very short time ngo since this aus-
picious event happened, and yet it was cloao upon fourteen
years past and gone !

Until tlie last eighteen months the blossoming process had
gone on annually with unfailing reguUirity, until ho found
himself the parent stem of a bunch of blossoms numbering
nine, with two dead, when the roll was called. "Bah Gosh,
dc chiles come so fass at de fust of eet," Mr. Laforge was in
the habit of saying, "dat's fright me. Becfor dc fuss wan
wus got toots on hees head, aw ! hoorah bye I anuddair wan
was on de craddlc; an jews soon's dat wan wus use to look
'round and notteece what's go on leetle beet, aw, voila I dar
wus nuddair wan on han fur took hees plasse. Ah'll toll
you, mah fren, moss ov mah tam fur de fuss tree, four year
aftaire we wus marry wus occoopy wit nussin."

Howbeit, though this was to a large extent a fact, and
with that vanity common to lords of creation in respect of
his capacity to perform woman's work, Jacques had gotten
to think that, armed with an India rubber nippled bottle,
containing a decoction of cow's milk and sugar, he could be
as good as any mother to an infant, still the work upon the
farm did not go unmindful of attention. With an energy
begotten of an imperturbable amiability and a determined
disposition to provide for growing responsibilities, he sim-
ultaneously performed the duties of acting wet-nurse and
cultivator of a largely submerged marsh farm in a manner
not altogether discreditable to himself.

In the former role he at least possessed the quality of
supreme patience, growing at the same time, as most sub-
stitute nurses of infants are said to do, absurdly fond of the

r'^'.DEU CANUCKS.

since tills aus-
upon fourteen

ling process had
until lie found
lonis nunnbcring
d. "Bah Gosli,
Laforgo was in
or de fuss wan
il anuddairwan
sv'us use to loolc
., aw, voilal dar
[isse. Airil toll
s tree, four year

in."

ont a fact, and

3n in respect of

ues had gotten

nippled bottle,
^ar, he could be

work upon the
V"ith an energy
d a determined
bilities, he sim-

wet- nurse and
'ni in a manner

. the quality of
e, as most sub-
rdly fond of the

objects of his care and especially of littlo Marie his first-
born; while in his efforts on the farm he was ambitious of
redeeming from the sway of stagnant, vordunt waters and
boggy bayous, sufficient of terra Jirma to relieve his holding of
its sobriquet of " Mushrat Farm " given it by certain of his
cotemporary friends and acquaintances with a facetious dis-
position to chaflfand ridicule.

To this end, after locating a fall for the water he dug a
di+^h east and west across the fifteen acres intervening twixt
th dry cultivated land on which were the house and out-
buildingsand the irreclaimable marsh, which area Lc had sue*
ceeded in encircling with a rail fence. The following year
being dry and in every way propitious for such pur{)ose, he
succeeded in breaking up this field with the plow, and plant-
ing a crop of Indian corn, which after a period of languish-
ing yellow growth came to partial maturity and yielded a
half crop of deformed and sickly looking nubbins.

Believing that this method of cultivation — this kind of
hoed crop — would most rapidly and effectively bring the
soil into subjection he repeated his corn planting for three
or four consecutive seasons with varyiiig success as to yield,
until he bethought him that he'd sow the field with oats
and seed it down v/ith grass seed for meadow.

Meanwhile the domestic blossoms blossomed forth an-
nually, and there was ever a recurring stranger in the home-
made basswood cradle.

Marie, the first of these wlien a soft, brown-eyed, olive
complexioned little tot just able to comfortably waddle
about was ever at her father's heels in the neighboring
field, the barn yard or the house.

tS"

BORDER CANUCKS.

She had undergone all the stereotyped infantile»maladies
and a siege of ague, through which her father had been her
chief nurse and caretaker until he had grown to be the
summum bonum of her little life.

There seemed no possibility of avoiding the annual visit-
ations of the ague.

With each succeeding spring and wet fall every available
member of the family shook the soul-sickening sliake of
a torpid or constipated liver. Howbeit, like puppies with
the distemper, as each succeeding blossom of tlie house-
hold became big enough to stand a natural sliake in con-
tradistinction to an artificial one (which has an unknown
quantity within the portals of this particular domestic fold),
he or she was subjected to the crucible of two or three
seasons' tremors which once over seemed to strengthen the
child's hold upon life, rendering he or she redolent of youth-
ful vigor.

Of his children, Mr. Laforge was in the habit of saying to
his English speaking friends, "Ah'll toll you mah fren,
" mah chile was all strong lac boole !

"Dey was coppair fass an reeveet bote heenside an hout-
'side I De ager have try hees bess fur shook dem off dees

* worl 'mats she's coo'nt do eet. Yas sair I all of dem was

* foole of laf an belt all 'cep our pauvre petite Marie. Ah,
*m-onsieur, when Ah tink of dat po' leetle cret'[)le chile,
Mat's mac me blam meseff an Ah feels bad lac secstay."

After saying which he usually had to fumble about his
pockets for a yellow bandanna pocket handkerchief, inter-
spersed wnh white moons, which he perennially carried for
use m such emergencies.

BORDER CANUCKS.

antile»maladies
r had been her
3wn to be the

le annual visit-

jvery available
ining shake of
3 puppies with
of the house-
shake in con-
is an unknown
iomestic fold),
[ two or three
strengthen the
olent of youth-

►it of saying to
^ou mah fren,

□side an hout-
dem off dees

all of dern was
Marie. Ah,
cret'ple chile,

1 lac secstay."

ble about his

erchief, inter-

V carried for

Little Jklarie's crippled condition was due to an accident
which happened in the partially redeemed marsh meadow
on the evening of the last day her father had wrought
therein, and for this mishap he so blamed himself that he
had become bitterly morbid upon the subject.

It was well on towards dark on a lowering evening in the
latter part of April that Jacques had finished seeding down
the fifteen acre field which had cost him so much of hard
labor and so many sickening soul-warping ague shakes.
He had put forth all his huge strength and capacity for
work to the utmost to finish th .' task before the rain came,
and this the overhanging clouds of portentous omen, the
chirping of the myriad frogs throughout the vast marsh in
every conceivable key of intonation, the deep sounding
notes of the Wahwahron (bull frog) and the weird call of
the distant loon, all went to show was not far off.

He was just finishing the last harrowing of the field
when he was hailed, in a little piping voice from a little pair
of lungs very much out of breath, and asked why he was
stopping out there so long? Wasn't he afraid the Loup
Oarou (Banshee) or luiiiis (fairies) would catch him, that
Maw-Maw wanted him to come in to supper right away.

He told her to come over to where he was and he'd put
her on Blonde (one of the team of ponies) for a ride to the
barn, and then he had proceeded to unhitch the horses from
the harrow.

Poor little Marie I Tfiat run across the newly plowed field
in the gloaming of that storm-threatened April evening was
the last unimpeded use of her fragile young limbs she ever
had.

BORDER CANUCKS.

! I

Breathlessly she had thrown her littl,3 arms around her
father's knees while he was still occupied with loosening
the ponies from their work and then finishiLg this, amidst
a volley of loving, lisping epithets and baby-talk he had
taken her up in his great, strong arms and allowed her to
vent her infant strength in hugging and kissing him.

Then he put her on Blonde and told her to hold fast to
the harness saddle-band until he went across the field to
fetch the neckyoke.

He had not got more than a hundred feet ">m her when
Carlo the dog came bounding over the rail j.^ace, not ten
feet from the horses' heads, which so startled them in the
dim, lowering twilight that they gave one bound backwards,
and with a wild and frantic baby shriek, which for months
afterwards never ceased its sickening echo in Jacques' grief-
stricken ears, the little child lay prone upon the old fashioned
wooden harrow.

The fall was accompanied by so sickening and resound-
ing a thud followed by so awful a stillness, the very

frogs seemed hushed into silence for the instant — that an all
absorbing fear took possession of the simple-minded father
— a blood-curdling fear mingled with that kind of feeling

the brutes must have whan defending their

young

from

danger.

He seized upon the dog who had come jumping and
fawning upon him and flayed him till he howled again.

Then he went to the innocent horses and laid about them
with the remnant of the whip he still clutched with a vise-
like grip in his strong, right hand until they scampered o£E
in terror to their stable.

BORDER CANUCKS.

13 around her
with loosening
:g this, amidst
)y-talk he had
allowed her to
ng him.

,o hold fast to
33 the field to

■>m her when
xNjnce, not ten
id them in the
md backwards,
lich for months
Jacques' grief-
le old fashioned

Left now some twenty feet from the motionless baby,
'lying where she had fallen in the silence of apparent death,
he turned towards the tiny prostrate form and with a horror-
thrilling sensation about the back of his neck and head and
nausea at his stomach he tried to speak but could not

Slowly and mechanically with tottering steps he ap-
proaches his little daughter with his left hand over his
mouth as if tp stop the noise of his involuntary , inward
shivering.

For one instant he stands swaying like a drunken man
over the unconscious child and then with a supreme eilort
he touches her little face and in an unearthly yelling-moan
cries out, "0^, Afon Dieuf Mon Dieul! Elle est Merte /.'"
and the strong man lay grovelling upon the earth beside
the old wooden harrow riven to the heart's core as the
lightening riveth the oak of the forest

2 and resound-

the very

it — that an all

-minded father

ind of feeling

ir young from

jumping and
wled again,
lid about them
ed with a vise-
' scampered off

CHAPTER III.

A Malediction and an Inaugural Friendly Cor\fab,

'ACQUES "WAS never conscious of how he got to the
house.

His first realization of his reaching there was some three
' iiours after the occurrence, when, on the arrival of the doc-
tor, he was induced to relinquish from his arms, where he
iad ever since clasped it with moaning inarticulate solici-
tude, the still scarcely breathing form of the injured, little
-child.

For days and weeks little Marie vibrated between life and
death, and for days and weeks Jacques oscillated twixt re-
gions of passive dementia and a sort of phrenzied indiffer-
ence of passing events outside the little, sick one's presenca

Whenever he continued to sleep he again acted out in his
■dreams the terrible tragedy of the fifteen acre field until he
cursed its very existence and the labor he had wrought upon
it — calling Heaven to witness that it should ever remain un-
touched of plow or harrow so long as it continued in his
j>ossession.

Marie had fallen upon the back of her neck and head, and
the spinal column had been so effected by the concussion
that for weeks she hovered upon the confines of positive
Spinal menengitis. In any event, the doctor (who was a
clever allopath) pronounced her complete recovery from the
liffects of the shock as out of the question. She would surely
jemain a cripple as long as she lived, and in this diagnosis
ii the case he was thus far proved entirely correct

(19)

BORDER CANUCKS.

Gradually the poor little thing struggled back to life an
consciousness again — in this regard, as it were, repeating th
history of her scarcely completed babyhood, until, by din
of years of patient suffering, she grew sufficiently strong bot
mentally and physically to wield the sceptre of acting drudg
and quasi-guardian angel to a numerous family of brother
and sisters, to say nothing of her self-condemnatory father.

The latter's sacreligious curse of the fifteen acre field mad^
it desirable that he should sell the farm and move elsewhen
to live. Now that its cultivable area, in so far as he wai
concerned, was permanently fixed at seven or eight acres
there was very little hope of its ever outliving its facetiouslj
amphibious name of "Mushrat Farm." The field that h(
had so grunted and sweated over in his efforts to rescue f ron
the arid bogs and humid mosses of the marsh added to th(
black loamed, rich acres off which he had heretofore reaped
such generous yields, would have entitled it to consideratiou
as a holding available for almost any agricultural purpose
and greatly enhanced its value.

But this was out of the question now.

That he should have striven so hard and suffered so much
from malaria and mosquitoes during his long continued ef-
forts to rescue the field from stagnant waters — the whole
winding up with this fatal accident, the outcome of his own
careless stupidity — seemed to justify his cursing the scene
of his great trouble, and vowing that ever while he owned it
should it remain untouched of plow or harrow.

Manifestly his proper course was to sell out and move else-
where to live, but then where was he to find a purchaser?
"Who would be prepared to pay money — absolute money—

BORDER CANCCKS.

jgled back to life and
it were, repeating the
yhood, until, by dint
ifficiently strong both
eptre of acting drudge
IS family of brothers
ndemnatory father,
fifteen acre field made
1 and move elsewhere
I, in so far as he was
seven or eight acres,
,tliving its facetiously
" The field that he
efforts to rescue from
e marsh added to the
lad heretofore reaped
ed it to consideration
agricultural purpose

and suffered so much
is long continued ef-
waters — the whole
3 outcome of his own
is cursing the scene
-^er while he owned it
harrow.

3II out and move else-
to find a purchaser?
— absolute money-

tor "Mushrat Farm," with its malaria, its mosquitoes, its
Inusic of the frogs and its seven or eight narrow acres avail-
able for active cultivation ?

If some greenhorn from Lower Canada or foreign country,
inexperienced of ague and mosquitoes and very much in
l^ant of a place to call his own, oame along with a little
money he perhaps might be induced to purchase ; but no
5)ne with any savoir faire of the locality would be likely to
Invest his capital in " Mushrat Farm " as a place of resi-
<lence and a means of livelihood.

;) So there seemed no alternative to his reconciling himself
io remaining where he was.

It was quite true that the farm had contributed but little,
agriculturally speaking, to the maintenance of himself and
liis family, but as heretofore, wiin the marsh or submerged
; iportioQ of it as a base of operations, he had but very little
^oubt but that in the future he would be enabled to shoot,
in their proper season, sufficient ducks and other fowl for
the market and secure suflBcient grebe's breasts and musk-
rats and occasional mink skins by trapping or otherwise
tilling them to make up for the circumscribed limits of his
;5&gricultural operations.

V Nor was this Jacques' only source of income and profit-
|Bble occupation outside the product of the farm.

During five or six weeks of every autumn for several
jbeasonspast he had held the position of ^'jetteur dela seine, "
pr foreman at one of the white-fisheries on the Detroit river
iBituated within easy access of his home.

Of old time these fisheries were to their lessees or owners
prolific means of money-getting during the catch of these

BORDER CANUCKS.

delicately delicious fiah which lasted while they continued
to wend their annual way up the river from the lake below
to spawn, from the beginning of October to the latter part of
November.

Owing, however, it is said, chiefly to the wholesale method
of taking them on their feeding grounds in the lake with
pond nets, so long permitted on both sides of the border, in
the absence of some reciprocal and concerted action on the
part of the two governments interested, the goose that lays
the golden egg has gradually been being put to death for
years past, until now the one time profitable industry of
taking white fish on the Detroit river is a precarious and
unpromising undertaking.

In addition to these means of assistance Jacques had in
keeping the wolf from the door, there was occupation for
his sturdy team of ponies during the winter months in
the hauling of logs out of the bush to the banks of the
Canard river for the local contractors and jobbers.

But none of his availabe sources of income had thus far
yielded returns so satisfactory as had his trapping of musk-
rats and shooting of ducks that frequented the marshes and
rivers at certain periods of each spring and fall.

With the muskrat skins, grebe's breasts and occasionnl
mink skins he had heretofore secured, he had set up a sort
of business connection with the firm of Eathbone & Ritter,
who had always dealt fairly and liberally with him in tak-
ing off his hands the product of each trapping season for
several years past.

It was while he was on one of these periodical visits to tlie
store of the firm with an unusually large and fine lot of skins

BORDER CANUCKS.

le they continued
tn the lake below

> the latter part of

wholesale method
in the lake with
of the border, in
rted action on the
le goose that lays |
y put to death for i
table industry of
J a precarious and I

; Jacques had in
ras occupation for
winter months in

> the banks of the
jobbera

ome had thus far
trapping of musk-
I the marshes and
d fall.

ts and occasionnl
had set up a sort
,athbone & Eitter,
with him in tak-
apping season for

odical visits to the
rd fine lot of skins

[that he first met and talked with young Master Jack Rath-
ibone, then only a boy of thirteen in jacket and Knicker-
[bockers.

Young Ratubone was a large, well developed boy for his

[age, and withal a remarkably handsome lad about the face

and head, which was well set on a pair of broad shoulders

and covered with a thick coating of flaxen hair slightly in-

|clined to frizzle and curl up at the ends.

While one of the clerks, an expert in the business, was
I busy sorting and classifying the furs Jacques had just brought
I in, Master Jack with a short riding whip in hand, and look-
ling flushed from exercise came in from the street and, ad-
1 dressing the clerk, said: "Good morning, Mr. Lomax, is
father in the office?" And then without waiting for an
answer he continued, " My goodness ! those are a fine lot of
skins, aren't they, Mr. Lomax ?"

" Yes, a pretty fair lot," answered the preoccupied clerk.
Then turning to Jacques the boy asked, " Did you catch
all those animals yourself, sir?"

"Ah, yas; Ah've kotch dem all bah meseff," replied the
,^ hunter smilingly.

" Whereabouts? Up or down the river? "
" Down de riviere. Monsieur; down on de riviere Canard
mash."

" Oh, is that the big marsh on the Canada side opposite
Wyandotte?"

"Yas, dat's de wan."

" Well, I've always thought whenever I've passed there
"^on a steamboat that there must be lots to hunt and shoot in

DOUDEIl CANUCKS.

SO big a marsh. I suppose there are lots of ducks down
there, aren't there? "

" Ah, yas; plentay dock on de sayson — on de spreeng an
fall tam."

"Anything else? " enquired this incipient Nimrod.

" Well, yas; dare was plentay ploovoir and snaps moss all
de tam," replied the Frenchman, " but me, Ah doan care nut*
ting 'bout dat; dey wus not wort shootin."

" What ! " cried the boy in amazement, " snipe and plover
not worth shooting I Well, I should remark that's a funny
thing to say ! Why, I'd rather have one golden plover or
jack snipe than any six old fish ducks that ever flew 1 "

"But" remonstrated Jacques, "dey wus not all feesh
dock what we's got down on de riviere Canard mash joar exam-
pie I We's got black dock, grey dock an teels moss all de
tam, cos dey breeds on de mash; an on de sayson we's got
blue beel, an cou Wouge an canvas back an "

"Canvas back!" interrupted the boy enthusiastically,
" are you sure that you've got the genuine, sure enough can-
vas back, sir ? "

"Aw, yas, am sure," responded the Frenchman nodding
his head confidently.

"Did you ever shoot any genuine canvas back? Mind
you, red necks look a great deal like canvas back, only they
are a great deal smaller, you know."

" Aw, yas," replied the Canadian, smiling; " Ah knows de
deeferance baytween de red neck and de canvas back. De
red necks, what we calls cou rouge een French, wus kin of dock
vary common; mats de canvas back par example was hard
to fine an hard to shoot, too."

BOHDKR CANUCKS.

I of ducks down

on de spreeng an

It Nimrod.

id snaps moss all

^h doan care nut*

'snipe and plover
irk that's a funny
golden plover or
. ever flew I "
us not all feesh
'd vci^sh par exam-
teels moss all de
sayson we's got

enthusiastically,
sure enough can*

nchman nodding

as back? Mind
s back, only they

r;" Ah knows de
ianvas back. De
1, wuskinofdock
example was hard

"Oh, yes, I suppose they're hard to shoot, and I know
they fetch a big price. Why, they say they sometimes pay
as high as five and even ten dollars a pair for them in the
New York market"

*' Aw, no! ten doUair fur wan pairs ov dock! " exclaimed
the Frenchman incredulously, "dat was too moch. Ah
guess you wus meestock, Monsieur."

"Oh, no, I'm not mistaken," persisted the boy, "I saw it
mentioned as a fact in one of the papers."

" Well, maybeso," said Jacques, doubtingly shrugging his
shoulders; "Ah knows dat dare wus pleutay reech folks
down on New York mats ten dollair wus too much fur wan
pairs ov dock! Why, mah fren, " continued Jacques orac-
ularly, " lass fall Ah have feel moss lac a teef acose Ah've
ax sich beeg prasse fur seven canvas back dock dat Ah wus
lucky nuff to shoot on wan day I De folks what keep de
Greeswold House on de ceety here have geeve me ten dol-
laire fur dem seven canvas back dock sure's Ah'm spoke to
you here now I"

" Oh, yes," replied the youth approvingly, " I've no doubt
they did."

"But you know," replied Jacques, "Ah have jews ax
dem ten dollair fur fun to start wit You see dare wus two
tree udder mans dare what wus ankchus for got dem; an
soon's Ah have ax dat ten dollair, de mans from de hotel
pool two fahve dollair beel hout of hees pockette an ban
dem to me an goes off lac he was varah mouch please, " and
Mr. Laforge smiled audibly.

" Yes, and I have no doubt he was, " replied the boy.
" Why, I'd give anything I had in the world to kill a can-

,!ilP,

BOIIDEU CANUCKS.

vas back ! I'd have him stuffed and keep him as a cur-
iosity, you know." And confidentially continuing he said:
*' You know my father imported a lovely Westley Richards
double barrel breech loader for me. You ought to see it I
She's a beauty! Weighs only six pounds, is twenty-six inches
in the barrels and number ten gauge; and if mother didn't
make such a fuss every time I go off alone with it lest I
might shoot myself, I'm sure I'd have shot a canvas back by
this time if there's one at all to be found in the country."

" Well," said Jacques, amused with the boy's enthusiasm,
" Ah'U toll you v^hat you goan do; geet yo faddeur an mud-
deur t'allow you to come down wit me on mah plasse an Ah
goan took good care ov you an not let you shoot yoseff, an
we'll see eef dare was no canvas back on de contray ou no I
Not now, of course, acose dees was not on de sayson fur
dock; mais nex fall, you know,"

"And will you be sure to take me with 3'^ou," exclaimed
the boy eagerly, "if I get mother's consent, because father
does not care how often I go shooting now."

" Aw, yas, fur sure Ah weel ! " assented Jacques.

" By Jiminy ! that will be jolly, won't it? And do you
live in the marsh, sir?"

"Oh, no, " replied he Frenchman somewhat disconcerted
at the bear thoii^^lit of his living absolutely in the marsh
like u bull frog or a muskrat. "Oh, no, Ah dean leef right
een de mash, you know mais jews long side you know. De
mash ees on part of mah farm which have hees front part
on de riviere road you know. "

" Oh, yes, I see you don't live in the marsh but just along

DOKDEU CANlCKrf.

iim as a cur-
.ling he said:
tley Richards
^ht to see it I
uty -six inches
mother didn't
vitli it lest I
nvas back by
e country."
s enthusiasm,
deur an mud-
pi asse an Ah
oot yoseff, an
ontray ou no I
e sayson fur

" exclaimed
jcause father

ques.

And do you

disconcerted
n the marsh
»an leef right
u know. De
jes front part

ut just along

side of it. That's jolly! and what is your name pleaso
sir?"

"Mahnam/"

" Yes. "

" Midi nam was Jean Jacques Laforge, but moss of de
folks calls me Jock. "

"^[r. Jock Laforge! Well you know Mr. Jock'' con-
tinued the lad confidentially, " My name is John Rathbone,
but most people, in fact everybody except father when he's
cross, calls me Jack and I'd far rather be called Jack too!
Jack Hathbone doesn't sound half so stilf and unfriendly as
John K'lthbone! You know I'm the only son of Mr. Robert
Rathbone the head partner in this store. "

*' Aw, an you was de son of Monsieur Ratbone! Well,
Monsieur Jack, Ah was glad for male acquaint wit you"
and he held out his hand and greeted the senior partner's
only son with a hearty shake.

" I suppose you are a French Canadian, aren't you, Mr.
Laforge?" queried the boy.

" Aw, yes, Ah was what you call un Canadien Francais
Mah faddeur'sgran-faddeur was wan of de fuss settleur on
dees riviere. "

"Yes, well then he must have known my mother's
grandfather, because you know he was a French Canadian
and one of the first settlers on Detroit river too. "

"Yas! ees dat a fae? Well, well! dat's sureprise me.
What was de nam of you muddeur beefor she have marry
wit yofaddeur?"

"My mother's name before she was married ?"

"Yas, " replied Jack.

I. i,

BORDER CANUCKS.

"Her name was LaTourneau — daughter of Mr. Edward
La Tourneau, who used to keep store here in the city a long
time ago. He is dead now you know. "

" Aw, yas, yas, yas, " responded the Canadian gradually
elevating his voice, "she was de datteur of Monsieur
Edwar La Tourneau, de ole Merchan what have he dead
long tam now ! Yas, Yas, Ah remembaire heem an where
he was use to keep store near de markette. Aw, well ! she
was wan of us peuple I she was French Canadien too, ain't
she?"

"Oh, yes, she is a French Canadian by descent, you
know, " assented the lad doubtfully.

" Ho, O, Ho, 0, " replied Jock musingly, " Ah nevaire
know dat beefore I Madame Ratbone was French Canadien
too ay ?"

" By decent you know, " interpolated the youth with
young American pride and remonstrance.

" Bah deescen!" enquired Jock as if in a quandary, "bah,
deescen 1 what's mean dat Monsieur Jack ?"

" Coming down you know, " explained the boy. " Coming
down — descending you know. "

" Comin down from de French Canadien I" exclaimed
Jock laughingly. " Well Ah coo'n't see how she's come
down I Moss of us Canadien Francais was pore lac de
tuckey of Job an she was reech lac Preencess 1 Ah guess
she mus have come up from us French Canadiens ! She's
not come down dat's sure thing 1 ha, ha, ha I " and he laughed
again at his own joke.

" Well, " said the senior partner's heir as if to finally dis-
pose of the question of whether his mother came up or

BORDER CANUCKS.

came down from the French Canadian race, "she can talk
French any way. "

"Aw yas, " assented the Canadian approvingly, "Ah
suepose so ! All ov us Canadien ken talk French you know !
Dat wus hour laungage. "

" Yes and you can ask her in French to let me go shoot-
ing with you, can't you Mr. Jock ?" queried the youth
eagerly.

" Ah, yas, Ah suepose Ah could do dat, " assented Jock
doubtfully.

"And I know she'd let me go if you asked her in French
Mr. Jock, " exclainied the boy with enthusiasm.

" May be so, may be so, " abstractedly observed Jock
awed by the contemplation of interviewing so grand a lady
as the rich Mrs. Rathbone must be. " May be so. "

" By Jimminy I" exclaimed the lad demonstratively
striking the side of his right leg with his riding whip, " if I
had only driven down in my pony cart this morning
instead of riding dcwn on horseback, I should have
driven you up to tha house right off now and intro-
duced you to mother, i know she'd be awfully glad to see
you Mr. Jock. '

"Aw, no, ua, some udder tam, some udder tam, " ner-
vously responded Jock.

" Some other time, " repeated the boy, " when will that
be ? how long will it be before the duck shooting season
commences ?"

" Bout tree mons from de present tam. "

"That will be about ib<» 1st of September, won't it, Mr.
Laforge?"

» ■'*~2>5«*Sii

BORDER CANUCKS.

*' Yas, dat's when she's beegin de sayson. "

" Well now, " said the lad starting up, " I must go and
deliver a message to father. So I'll say good-by for the
present, sir,'* extending his hand to the Canadian. "But
you mustn't forget your promise to take me shooting with
you, you know, Mr. Laforge. "

" Oh no, Ah not goan to forgeet dat I You need not be
scare of dat ! Ah goan come an got you, " said Jock
shaking hands with the boy.

"Mind, " said the lad smilingly as he retreated backwards
towards the inner office. "I'll be on the lookout for you
here at the store from the 1st of September right on every
day until you put in an appearance. Mind you that Mr.
Laforge, " and he playfully shook his finger at Jock as he
turned to face the entrance to the counting room.

" All raght Monsieur Jack I all raght ! Ah goan be here
some tam bout de fuss week on Septambaire eef Ah leef at
dat tam, sure ting !"

And so in due course when the first week in September
came about Jacques put in an appearance at the store where
he found that Master Eathbone had been patiently awaiting
him for several hours each day for several days previous to
his coming.

After much persuasion the enthusiastic young sports-
man induced the shy Canadian to drive up with him to the
Eathbone mansion where in much trepidation and awe of the
luxurious surroundings, he was introduced to Mrs. Eath-
bone, mere.

She was a petite brunette, slightly on the shady side of
forty, with an easy grace and pretty little Frenchy manner,

BORDER CANUCKS.

aust go and
-by for the
ian. " But
noting witli

need not be
' said Jock

i backwards
jout for you
;lit on every
3u that Mr.
Jock as he
n.

roan be here
Ah leef at

September

store -where

tly awaiting

previous to

lung sports-
1 him to the
d awe of the
Mrs. Ratli-

lady side of
chy manner,

and not yet bereft of charms which twenty years previously
must have made her very attractive.

She talked French in a charmingly familiar way to
Jacques; questioned him interestedly about his family and
talked so affectionately, not to say confidentially, about her
only son and two daughters that the owner of Mushrat
farm was amazed to find how comfortable and at his ease he
felt. She made him take a glass of wine and wanted to
know whether aftei his long drive he didn't feel hungry; if
so, she would have him something to eat gotten at once; but
all these proffers of hospitality he politely and gratefully
declined.

After repeated stipulations as to the safety of her mani-
festly idolized boy she consented to allow him to accompany
Jacques back to his home on the Riviere Canard for two or
three days' shooting, and although from this expedition there
was not evolved any canvass back ducks, howbeit it estab-
lished an acquaintance which had ripened into a genuinely
sincere and earnest friendship between the simple-minded
habitant hunter and the prococious city youth at the outset
of the period of this veracious history.

Meanwhile little Marie, though a confirmed cripple, had
sufficiently recovered from the effects of the accident, which
befell her in the partially rescued mursh field, in the gloam-
ing of that lowering April evening, to use her still baby-like
fingers in the profitable braiding of straw for the firm of
Rathbone k Ritter.

The child seemed inspired with a preternatural industry
and imbued with an eager desire to make her crippled con-
dition as little burdensome to her parents as possible.

jiSk-fmn

BORDER CANUCKS.

While the fifteen acre field itself, as if blighted by her
father's malediction, notwithstanding all the tedious labor it
had cost its owner, soon reverted back to its original condi-
tion — the blighting sway of stagnant, verdant marsh waters
and the dead and dying things therein contained.

Thus the partere of Monsieur Jacques Laforge on the con-
fines of the Riviere Canard marsh was inevitably relegated
back to its seven or eight acres of cultivable area, and
therel- le, confirmed in the possession of its amphibious
sobriqo.oi o* " Mushrat Farm."

CHAPTER IV,

A Delightful Place to Live and Keep House in.— A Mixed Marriage.

'TXT'ITH ITS vast frontage upon St. Lawrence's mighty
waterway to the sea (at that point upon it which
has been aptly called the Bospherous of America) its wide
and cleanly streets, its imposing public buildings and busi-
ness blocks, its luxuriously artistic villas, its island park
and its ornate environs generally, how beautiful a city is
Detroit, the metropolis of the state of Michigan !

Given the wherewithal to do so, surely no city on this
continent, or, for that matter, any other continent, oflerssur-
roundings more agreeably propitious to sojourn in or "live
and keep house in" in these utilitarian days, than does the
City of the Straits.

Albeit the citizen of enquiring mind or the student of
topography must perforce climb to the summit of that pre-
ternatural promintory, the city hall tower, to get his bearings
or accurately understand on what particular point on God's
footstool he lives and has his being — when he does attain
to that inevitable municipal apex he is well repaid for his
pains.

From this elevated point of observation on a clear day he
discovers that he is in the center of a huge cycloramma of
flood and field with magnificent monuments of labor, and
every other evidence of busy life and industry in the fore-

(33)

mw-ntiHAH

BORDER CANUCKS.

ground, while the azure tinted horizon on all sides forms
the background to one of nature and art's imposing pictures
of a valley of plenty.

During the season of navigation the majestic river presents
an ever shifting scene of activity in its moving craft of every
description, from the graceful pleasure yacht and midget
sail boat to the grandly dignified grain or ore laden steam-
ship as she glides upon her devious way down the current
of the mighty river towards the sea, to return with coal or
'merchandise for the dwellers in the great Northwest.

Stretching out from amidst the miles of wharves, ware-
houses and manufactories along the border of the river,
acio3^ the imposing paralell thoroughfares, the broad well
built streets like so many life-giving arteries in a healthful
human body radiate and ramify to the north and west
across a net work of centering railways until they lose
themselves in green fields and variegated gardens in the
remote outskirts of the model city.

Across the river in the Queen's dominions, less than three
quarters of a mile away, is the thriving town of Windsor
over which the eye sweeps southward across the well-tilled
fields and verdant pastures of the thickly populated penin-
sular which constitutes the southernmost land's end of
Canada and which buries its pedal-like prow in the purply
haze of Lake Erie's cloud kissed waters in the far distant
blue horizen.

To Detroit is accredited somewhere in the neighborhood
of two hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, "be the
same more or less," while Windsor slowly but surelv

BORDER CAXrCKS.

all sides forms
iposing pictures

ic river presents
ng craft of every
tclit and midget
Dre laden steam-
own the current
irn with coal or
[orthwest.
: wharves, ware-
ler of the river,
3, the broad well
•ies in a healthful
north and west
3 until they lose
i gardens in the

ns, less than three
own of Windsor
OSS the well-tilled

populated penin-
3st land's end of
row in the purply

in the far distant

the neighborhood]
ihabitants, "be tlie
lowly but surely

struggles on with considerably less than one twentieth that
number.

Why this difference should exist is not within the
province of this humble pencil at this time to attempt to
elaborate. Suffice it to say that it does exist and that very
much the same disparit}' in favor of the American side is
observable wherever towns and cities have grown up
opposite each other throughout the long drawn out proxi-
mate borders of the two countries.

As a natural sequence to this state of things the prices of
land in these localities are respectively proportionately the
same, and it has been said that much of the annexation
feeling which exists along the Canadian frontier is aseribe-
able to an utilitarian setting aside of all sentiment of loyalty
to British rule in favor of a worship of Mammon and a
hankering for the flesh pots of Egypt.

It may safely be assumed however, that the existence of
this feeling to any noticeable extent is largely confined to
the speculative land owner, and general public opinion
would have to undergo a radical change from its present
condition upon the subjecterean amicable union of the two
countries of any sort could be brought within the range of
near probability.

However this may be, if Detroit be the great and grow-
ing metropolis it is at the present writing, it was but little
better than a village hamlet by comparison when in the
autumn of 1837 Robert Rathbone, Jack's father, found his
^ way thither from Plymouth, England, in search of fortune.
■ He landed in the incipient city at a time when it was
I being made to some extent the base of operations of the

I{ i 'I' jllllll

Mil

BORDER CANUCKS.

so-called "patriots" in the prosecution of their war upon Brit-
ish rule in Canada, under the leadership of that advanced
thinker and statesman, not to say benefactor to his country,
the late William Lyon Mackenzie.

Finding the town in an abnormal state of excitement
growing out of its position as the seat of this filibustering
warfare with a corresponding liveliness in its business circles,
Mr. Rathbone, unmarried, with a good address and a fair
knowledge of book-keeping, found no difficulty in securing a
situation as clerk and man of all work in a leading general
store doing a large business in the furnishing of supplies to*
traders and trappers along the chain of upper lakes, for
which furs and fish were received in exchange.

Continuing in this employ for some half dozen years to
the satisfaction of all concerned, this frugal and methodical
young Englishman became thoroughly conversant with the
general trade of the locality and especially au fait in the
sorting and selection of furs of every description.

This expert knowledge he was in due course enabled to
put to his own permanently profitable use ; for, in common
with a very large proportion of native born middle class
Englishmen who find their way to this side of the Atlantic,
Mr. Rathbone had expectations which were shortly to be
realized.

The death of an ancient maiden aunt soon placed him in
possession of a thousand pounds, and with this capital added
to his own savings he was enabled to start business on his
own account on a very respectable basis.

Taking into partnership with him George Ritter, a prac-
tical German furrier, he opened an establishment in modest

■)

BORDEK CANUCKS.

jM'emises on one of the then chief thoroughfares of the little
city, and thus was founded, upon what time has proved an
enduring basis, the important and now wealthy firm of Rath-
bone & Ritter, wholesale and retail dealers in furs, hats, caps
and straw-braid goods.

Having successfully launched this business firm, the sen-
ior member thereof bethought him that a matrimonial part-
nership would now be in order, and casting about him for
the desired partner he picked upon Miss Emily La Tourneau,
the daughter of a merchant doing business in a small way
in the city.

The course of true love in this instance was unproverb-
ially smooth.

Everything was propitious and plain, and prosaic sailing
the order of the day,

Mr. Robert Rathbone, aged thirty-two, unmistakably good-
looking, of steady habits and the head of a prosperous bus-
iness house, wanted a wife.

Miss Emily La Tourneau, a maiden fair, aged twenty-four,
if not absolutely heart whole or fancy free, for certain
specious reasons, at all events just at this time, prepared to
accept the first proffer of an eligible husband.

They met !

They exchanged assurances of mutual love and admiration!

They became engaged in the respectable conventional
fashion of the time.

They married, and viola ce tout!

It was not altogether what is generally accepted as an une
mairriage de convenance, but it was what may be called a first
cousin to it.

BORDEIl CANUCKS.

It was a mixed marriage.

He was a laissezfaire sort of Church of England Protest-
ant, while she was an actively observant Catholic.

But then that did not matter.

These kind of alliances, because of the denominational
peculiarities of the early French settlers along the Detroit
river, were of common occurrence on both sides of the bor-
der in these early days.

Nor did the religious discrepancy in these matrimonial
partnerships confine itself to their senior members — the
father and mother.

It was hnnded down to the sons and daughters — it being
the commonly accepted custom that the former should fol-
low their father to his Protestant church, while the girls
were trained up in the Roman Catholic faith of their mother.

Thus it came about that the two daughters of Robert and
Emily Rathbone were Catholics, while their only son, owing
to the indifferentism and religious lapses of his paternal par-
ent, was practically like the sinner who slipped between two
chairs.

The boy was made to go to church every Sunday, too
frequently of late without his father's escort, and beyond this
outward observance, from a psycological point of view, he
had been allowed to grow up after the manner of Topsy.

As to his secular education, he was not so far behind though
not by any means all that he ought to have been and prob-
ably would have been had he been the offspring of parents
professing one common faith. He had passed creditably
through the public school of the city, and for the previous
two years to the opening of this story, in a perfunctory sort

BORDER CANUCKS.

of way had attended the class of a private tutor, one Mr.
Hamilton, a pedagogue of the Dominie Sampson type.

Master Rathbone was a tall, robust and muscular, brown
eyed and light haired youth, with good features and a firm
set mouth, looking more like a young man of twenty than
a boy of eighteen as he actually was when first introduced
to the reader.

He was athletically inclined, a patron of the gymnasium
and a votary of any game or contest in which there was
any genuine sport.

Under Jacques Laforge's tuition he had become an expert
with the gun, and incidentally to his frequent expeditions to
the Riviere Canard had gotten to be passionately fond of
witnessing the grotesque trotting and pacing races frequently
held among the French in that neighborhood and other
localities up and down the shores of lake and river.

In the winter months it was very rarely that a French
race took place on the river Rouge below the city or any-
where within hailing distance on the Canadian side of the
main river that Jack Rathbone and his grey pony were not
found among the crowd attending the same.

He knew the style of gait and had a pretty fair know-
ledge of the speed capacity of almost every reputedly fast
French pony for miles around the beautiful city of the
Straits — the home of his nativity. "

CHAPTER V.

A Brush for the Lead.

"VTT"ITH Peter Bertrand, of Belle River, owner of a

' * speedy cliestnut pacing pony, Jack Rathbone was
on eapecially intimate terms.

Peter was a native of the Province of Quebec, from
whence he had been imported years ago by a "jobber"
in square timber for whom he had worked in the getting out
of oak and black walnut along the Cauudian shore for the
Quebec market.

In this employment Mons. Bertrand had saved sufficient to
purchase a farm near to the village of Belle River on the
shore of Lake St. Clair, some eisjrhteen miles east of Detroit
on the Canadian side, and on this he now lived with his
family, consisting of a wife and a numerous tribe of
progeny.

Of late years he had had frequent dealings with the firm of
Rathbone & Ritter in the article of straw braid of which he
not only sold them all produced by his own household but
also bought on commission for them all he could contrive
to pick up from among his neighbors.

In this way Monsieur Bertrand had gotten to be well
known to the firm and its employes, and incidentally had
established a friendship with the sportive only son of the
senior partner, whom he had first met at the store, and sub-

(41)

-> ^^'f

ly.i'!!

■"11

II pi

i liiill

!i I I

BORDER CAXUCKS.

sequently at frequent habitant horse races on tlie Canadian
side.

Peter was a tall man, and as straight as the proverbial
arrow, slightly pock-marked, with pleasing grey eyes and
good features.

He wore a well trimmed moustache which blended into a
pair of cheek whiskers, giving him a not unmilitary or un-
martial like appearance.

Being about fifty-five years of age, his brown hair was
somewhat streaked with grey. In the winter he usually
wore a plucked otter cap with a peak, and a long, ulster
overcoat of home-made cloth, which was encircled about the
middle with the inevitable habitant red sash.

Monsieur Bertrand was one of a kind commonly met with
among the French Canadians, who, notwithstanding his con-
stant intercourse with English speaking people, never con-
trived to learn to speak the language fluently.

"When he did speak it, as of course he was constantly
obliged to do, he did so with a very marked accent in a
deliberate, jerky style of utterance, and in total ignorance of
the complex letters th^ that great stumbling block to the
French Canadian learner of the Queen's English.

During the week following the Christmas holidays,
immediately preceding the opening of this narrative, M.
Peter Bertrand had business at the store of Rathbone &
Ritter, and on that occasion met Jack Rathbone, who
happened to come in while he was there.

" Hello, Monsieur Rathbone, " cried Peter with out-
stretched right hand, '* glad to see you I Ah wus jews ax de
folks here where you wus. "

BORDER CANUCKS.

"Ah, Mr. Bertrand, how de do," replied Jack, shaking
hands cordially. He always called Peter Mr. Bertrand when
he chanced to meet him in the store. That was Peter's
dress parade name, as it were. A way from the store, their
friendship and Peter's guilelessness of manner seemed to
warrant Jack's addressing him by his Christian name — and
Peter it usually was, notwithstanding the disparity 'twist
their respective years.

" Ah hopes you wus goan anjye many 'appay ray turn
ov de sayson Monsieur Jack, " said Peter with hearty
deliberation.

" Thank you, Mr. Bertrand, " responded Jack equally
heartily. "I hope that you'll live to see many, many
happy returns of the New Year. "

" Aw well, fur me you see Ah can't espec fur have
mouch more year you know, mats so long as Ah kin Ah was
goan have good tarn. '*

" Certainly, that's right I As big, and fine, and healthy a
looking man as you are ought to have a great many happy
years in store for him yet More particularly as you seem
to take so much pleasure out of life. By the way, talking
of pleasure, how is your chestnut colt getting on this
winter?"

" Come over dees way wit me, " said Peter in a mysterious
stage whisper, and they went up to the far end of the long
store ajid leaned up against the end of the counter. "

" Ah'll toll you Monsieur Jack, " mysteriously whispered
Peter, "Dat leetle chesnut colt wus flyeur! Ah'll toll you,
mah fren, he was flyeur I Sure ting he was flyeur I"

BORDER CANUCKS.

" Yes, " responded the youth smilingly, " I'm glad to hear
that. He was very speedy wlien I saw him up at the track
last fall, and I suppose he has improved very much on the
ice this winter. "

"You jews bet yo laf he haveamprove dees wintaire, "
replied Peter with frequent slow and de] x-ate nods of his
jockey looking cap. " Ah guess he muss be all ov tirtay
seconde fasser now on de hice dan he have be when you
have see heem up at de track lass fall. "

" Indeed 1 Well, I thought he moved like a future fast
one then, and I'm glad to know that I was not mistaken. "

" Nosirree, you was not meestook, Monsieur Jack, " slowly
articulated Peter with the same, slow confirmatory nods
of his head. " He wus llyeur, Ah'll toll you he was flyeurl "
And after a short, ratifying pause of silence during which,
with closely compressed lips, he gazed down into the eyes of
his young companion in solemn seriousness, lowering his
voice still more as he edged up towards Jack, he asked
" Deed you hear bout de race Ah was goan have wit de ole
'Crapaud ' of de Widday Martin?"

" No, when is it to come off ?" queried Jack in surprise.

" Two week from nex Sateurday, " whispered Peter.

" Two weeks from next Saturday I whereabouts ?"

" On de hice on de lac shore oposight wheres de widday,
she's keep tavern you know, " this very much soto voce,

" Why that must be near the mouth of Belle river then. "

" Yes, dat's de plasse, " assented Peter, " jews wheres de
Belle Riviere pass on de lac you know. "

" Well, but surely, " observed Jack, "your colt must have
improved very much to justify you in tackling Crapaud. "

BORDER CANUCKS.

I glad to hear

p at the track

much on the

es wintaire, "
e nods of his
! all ov tirtay
be when you

) a future fast
mistaken. "
Tack, " slowly
rmatory nods
e was flvsur! "
iluring which,
ito the eyes of
lowering his
ack, he asked
ave wit de ole

ik in surprise,
■ed Peter.

)OUtS?"

res de widday,
I soto voce.
ile river then. "
!ws wheres de

3olt must have
iiig Crapaud. "

■M

" Amprove I You bet yo laf he have amprove I Ah nevaire
see no kine ov horse amprove so fass in mah laf beefore, "
and Mr. Bertrand, with compressed lips, again gazed down
into Jack's eyes in serious and impressive silence, which
after a pause of an instant was broken by the latters say-
ing: " Well of course you know Peter that you have my
best wishes and I hope with all my heart that you'll win
the race, but Crapaud has a big reputation, and I have seen
him win several very fust heats. "

"Aw yes," said Peter, with repeated nods of assent,
"Ah knows all dat. Ah wus parfeclay well acquaint wit
dat. Ah knows dat de ole Crapaud liees carry de broom
now, viais you see eef dat leetle cliesnut doan geeve
heera pooty tuff poole fur dat broom two week from nex
Sateurday. "

" Well I sincerely hope so, " said Jack doubtfully, " but
how did you come to make the match?"

"Well you see eet wus jews lack dees, " replied Peter
taking off his skull cap and wiping his neck and low broad
forehead with a red bandanna })ocket handkerchief, "on de
day beefore New Year, what you call New Year Eve, Ah
wus come down to de town fur bah sum hoison an udder
freslirnent lac dat fur New Year (iixy. You koow dat wus
beeg day mongst us French folks. "

"Yes," assented Jack, "and I like your jolly, old
fashioned way of celebrating it too. "

" Well you see. Ah have see de Widday Martin on de
street on Winsorr.

" She wus foot, and I wus foot too, cos Ah have put mah
ponay on de barn, an Ah bow to heur an she's bow to me

BORDER CANUCKS.

verrah polite, lac she's always do, an All nevaire taught
nutting more bout de widday .

" An so pootay soon Ah have feeneesh all mah beesness on
de town, got all mah grocaray, an boison, an all what Ah wants,
an den Ah wus to heetch up an start fur home slowlay , cos Ali
wusdrav deleetlechesnutan I don't want pooshheem cos de
road wus not verrah good nigh de town, " here Mr. Bertraml
paused while he replaced his otter cap upon his head, and
restored the red bandanna to its wonted pocket. Then, in
detached sentences with a slight pause between each he con-
tinued, " Well jews as Ah have reech de udder end of de
Grande Cote, dees side of de mout of Petite Riviere, Ah
■wus to take de hice, cos she's fuss class from dure long de
lac shore to wheres Ah leev.

"Jews as Ah wus to turn fur took de hice, Ah heerd some
bell behine me an Ah looks 'roun, an dare wus de Widda}-
Martin all bah she's self lone, dravin de ole Crapaud on de
cutteur.

"'Hallo Pierrol' she's call hout to me, (een French of
course, you know).

" ' Ah wus hope Ah was goan kotch you. ' she say.

" ' All raght Meeses Ah say ' Eet wus heasy ting fur kotch
me Ah guess. '

" * No, ' she say, ' dey tells me dat colt of yourn wus
am prove verrah fass latelay. '

" ' Well, ' Ah say, * prhaps he have amprove leetle beet,
onais Ah doan know, ' an Ah wus to shuv hup mah shouleur
lac dat you know as eef I wus een doubt bout dat 1

" ' Hole on, ' she's cree hout, ' Ah goan geeve you brush
prcseutlay. '

i i

BORDER CANUCKS.

aire taught

beesness on
it Ah wants,
?lay,cosAli
heem cosde
Ir. Bertram!
3 head, and
;. Then, in
each he con-
!r end of de
Riviere, Ah
lure long de

I heerd some

de Widday

apaud on de

1 French of

esay.

iig fur kotch

yourn wus

e leetle beet,

nah shouleur

datl

;^e you brush

" ' Oh ' Ah say, ' you goan brush bah me whenevaire you
wus mine to Ah guess. '

" Mais she's doan say nutting more^ an pootay soon we wus
to strike de good hice an den she's come up long side an
challenge me fur brush wit heur.

" ' Well all raght, ' Ah say, ' Ah goan see eef Ah kin keep
hanywares nigh you. '

" ' You start fuss Madame, ' Ah say, an Ah have poole out
to geeve heur de bess track, what Ah was occoopy up to dat
tarn.

** That was being properly polite to a lady, " interpolated
Jack.

" Ah yas, Ah hopes Ah nevaire wus goan forgot mah
poleettess to de layday, you know.

"Well, when Ah've offaire de widday de bess track an
poole bout fur let heur come hup long side me, she say,
* Aw nevaire mine fur de track, Ah goan took dat aftaire
awhile.. '

" 'Jews as you wus a mine to Madame,' Ah say, an Ah bows
to heur varrah police, ' eef you doan want took de good track
all raght, Ah goan keep eet meseff, ' an at same tam Ah wus
say to mesefif, ' Now mah good widday womans eef you tink
you wus goan took dees track from me hany tam you wus
mine to, eef deesponay what Ah have got on dees cutteur
was jews as fassas Ah tink he wus to-day. Ah bleeve you
wus goan be pootay raoach meestook, Madame !

" An so we wus to start.

"Aw well, at de fust ov eet mah pony was ancline fur ace
a leetle bad.

ililf:;

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" You see he wus feelin pootay good an he wus pinted
tourds home, you know, an he wus want to go too fass fur
hees foots, so Ah have pootay hard tarn fur hole heem down
to hees work fur de fuss half mile, an de ole womans she's
gain on me leetle beet.

" Mais afteur dat Ah have got mah leetle feller down to
hees work, an den de fun's begeen ! >

"Ah well, de widday she's baycome excite now. Ah'll
toll you she was excite I" and Mr. Bertrand looking down
at the floor here paused for an instant to emphasize the
widow's excitement on the occasion by silently and slowly
nodding his head repeatedly with compressed, firm set
lips.

" Presentlay, " continued Peter, rousing up, "we have
struck good wide piece of liice what wus jews so smoot
lack glass, an Ah suepose de widday she's say to heurseff,
' Now Ah guess Ah goan leeve heem behine, ' an so she's
make brush for de leed an I have let heur pootay nigh got
bah me.

"Den Ah jews heasy up on mah Ian leetle beet, an bah
gosh 1 you otter see dat leetle feller got down to hees
work.

"Well, Monsieur Jack, you could bleeve me ou no, jews
as you wus mine to, but pon mah wurd he's fairly fiy I

"Eef he wus have reglar wing he coo'nt fly no fasserl

" Bah George, Ah nevaire wus ride so fass een all mah laf
beefore !" and Mr. Bertrand again paused, and with firmly
compressed lips gazed down into Jack's face with rigid
countenance.

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IplililillM

BORDER CANUCZS.

Then starting u-p he resumed, " An so Ah wus go so fass
and leeve de ole Crapaud an do widday behine soqueeck,
Ah jews le2 de leetle feller broke an leeve hees foots so's
she was goan tink eet was honly bah acceedent he wus go
so fass fur dat tarn, you know. " And here the owner of the
chestnut *' flyeur " winked voluminously at his youthful
and sympathetic auditor.

" An beefore Ah could got de leetle feller down to hees
work agin de ole woraans wus hup long side me, an ole
Crapaud wus actin fuss class.

" So we goes long fur more's half a mile side an side.

"Den de widday wusankshus f ui got by and she beegeen
to poosh on de Ian, an poosh on de Ian, " here Peter held up
his hands and arras and threw himself in an attitude in
imitation of ihe widow's driving, " An poosh on de Ian I
an holler, an yell loud's she coo'nt !

" An den Ah beegeen to heasy hup on mah Ian, an holler
an yell pootay good too.

*' An we wus go fass " and Peter here allowed his arms and
hands to drop down limp on either side of his commanding
form, " An poosh on de Ian, " he repeated bowing his head
forward and back slowly with each repetition, "an poosh
on de Ian, an go fass, bah gosh! We wus go fassl

" Pootay soon ole Crapaud's broked an leeve hees foots.

" Den de widday she's git mad. She zvusmadl Ah could
see she wus mad clean trough when she wus drop behine.

" She's Stan up on de cutteur an wheep de ole horse — lash
heem hard's she coo'nt

■

" Bah gosh, she wus mad !

" An so when Ah have see dat Ah wus to slow up, an she's

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come long side agin, an Crapaud wus actin verrah well an
she wus try to go pass me, but no sair, she's coo'nt do dat !

" An so we pace long side an side unteel we come to de
plasse wheres you turn up to go to Lemay's, de half ways
house, an Ah have stop dare an de widday she's go on hup
long de lac shore tourds home, '' and Mr. Bertrand while he
paused, again uncovered his head, and producing the red
bandanna proceeded to wipe the inside sweat band of his
conspicuous cap.

"So you think you were too much for Crapaud and the
Widow Martin that day do you ?" asked Jack laughingly.

" Ah doan tink so, Ah knows so, " replied Peter with
confidence, as he slowly restored his cap and handkerchief
to their respective places.

" Well, but you haven't told me how you came to make
the match, " suggested Jack.

" Aw, yas ; Ah wus goan toll you dat, " replied Peter, as
he straightened himself up to his full height

" Well, Ah have stop at Lemay's bout wan hour. Ah
guess — have tree four dreenk wit de byes, you know — New
Year tam you know.

" Den Ah have geeve tree four swallow ov wateur to de
ponay an start hup tourds home.

" When Ah have got oposight de tavern ov de widday,
jews beefore you come to de veellage, Ah have taught Ah
would go een an spent a quartair wit heur an see how she's
feel aftair our brush togedder.

" So Ah've stop an tie an covaire up de ponay and go een.

" When Ah wus arrive on de eenside ov de bar. Ah fine

. 'f

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€et wus foole ov all kine of fol\o an a good many ov dem
wus pootay much on de weevin way too.

" Ah suepose acose eet wus goan to be New Year's to-
morrow, you know.

*' Lots ov mall nabor wus mongst de crowd, an AhVe ax
all ov dem, evary wan what wus on de room, fur have a dreenk
wit me, an so, jews as we wus to took dat dreenk, de widday
she's come een from de back room. ' Well, Pierro, ' she
say, * Ah suepose you wus feel pootay good acose you have
hole so well wit me an Crapaud, dees aftairenoon; but you
need not to got drunk ovaire dat,' she say.

" Well sair, dat's mac me mad, Monsieur, dat's mac me
mad cleen trough ! An Ah say; * No, Madame, Ah wus not
goan got drunk bout sich leetle tmg lac dat, Ah wus jews
come on yo house fur spent two, tree shillin an Ah wus not
espec dat Ah wus goan be ansulte bah de laday ov dat
house. '

" 'Oh, no, ' she say, ' you muss excoose me, Ah wus only
tink you wus feel leetle too good cos ole Crapaud have not
leeve you furdeur behine dees aftairenoon. '

*' ' Madame. ' Ah say, ' yo ole creeple nevaire see de day
lie could leeve behine dat leetle chesnut ponay Ah've got
tie to de poss houtside. '

" Well, sair, dat's mac de widday mad, Ah'll toll you !

"Heur fass wus got pale lac sheet an she say, varrah
slowlay, wit tremble on heur vice, lac she wus try fur to
keep sumting down dat wus bylin hup heenside ov heur,
you know.

" * Well, Monsieur Pierro Bertrand, ' she say, * Ah jews
toll you what Ah weel do wit dat ole creeple, as you calls

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heem. Ah weel geeve you ten dollaire ef you wants to bet
me twentay dollair dat you kin beet dat ole creeple wit dat
chestnut plug ov yourn, mile heet, on de hice, tree week
fruni nex Satureday I' and den she have turn roun to de
crowd an say, 'dat's de way Ah talks to folks dat calls mah
horse creeple. '

" ' Well, Madame Martin, ' Ah say, ' Ah doan tink dare
wus hany use fur you to got yo back up lac dat. *

" ' You have ansulte me fust, an Ah have not ansulte you !'

" ' Ah have onlay call yo ole horse Crapaud wan creeple,
an Ah guess Ah wus not fur wrong needer. '

" Den she say een loud vice, an stomp heur foot on de
fleur, an shook heur head an arm :

" * Hany mans what ansulte mah horse Crapaud ansulte
me too, an Ah goan mac heem put up ou shut up sure
ting!' An when she have say dat some ov de crowd was cry,
* shame fur me fur ansulte a widday womans lac dat '

" Well, bah gosh ! Ah have got mad den !

" Ah wus fightin mad 1 An so Ah tooked hofl mah ovair-
coat an lay heem down on de conetaire, an Ah say,
an Ah have haddress evary wan on de compagnie : ' Ah
have come on dees house lac a peecefool ceeteezan, lac Ah
wus always try to be, an de fuss ting Ah knows de layday
of de house ansulte me. Mais, Ah doan ansulte heur on
rayturne for dat.

" ' Ah onlay say heur ole horse Crapaud wus wan creeple ;
an now Ah say furdeur dan dat. Ah kin prove hee's creeple,
an eef hany mans on dees room would lac to took dat up,
come right long an Ah goan try to geeve heem hees bellay
fool of sateesfaction.'

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"Ifais noboday wus to answer dat^>ar exiunplel

"*Now, Madame,* Ah say, haddressin do widday, 'you
have say jewst now dat you would be willin to geeve me
ten dollair eef Ah would bet you twentay dollair dat Ah
coold beat yo ole horse wit mah lectle chesnut plug.'

*' ' Yas, * she say, 'an Ah say dat agin .'

" ' Well, Madam, ' Ah say, ' Ah doan want fur took no
a vantage ov you.

" * Ah doan want yo monnah unless Ah weens eet fair an
lioness lac a genseeman, lac Ah hopes Ah wus always goan
be, an so Ah'll toll you what Ah weel'do wit you.

" 'Ah weel bet you twenty-fahve dollair heven, and poot
de monnah hup on ban ov Ephraham Parent here, raght hoff,
dat mah leetle chesnut plug kin beat yo great Crapaud on
de hice hanywares you wus mine to tree week from nex
Sateurday.'

'An so de widday she's look seurprise at dat proposee-
shun, but she say dat wus greeble to heur, provide de race
wus to come hofi on de lac shore opposight heur tavarne.

"'Aw, well, madame,' Ah say, 'Ah doan care wlieres de
race come hoff ; Ah'm weelling eef we goes on de meedle of
de lac to pace! Eet wus all de sam fur me.'

" An so de widday she's go back on de back part ov de
house an pootay soon she's come back agin wit twenty-fahve
dollair an poot heem hup on han ov Ephraham Parent, an
so Ah have pool bout mah porte-monnaie an count hout
twenty-fahve dollair an covair eet, an dat wus de way de
race wus mac hup."

"Mile heats, ay? " queried Jack.

" Yas, mile heet, bess tree on fahve," replied Peter.

il I'M

liiiiii

i'iiiiii

BORDEU CANl'CKS.

*' And I suppose there's a good tleul of bitter feeling about
the race, isn't there, Peter?"

"Oh, no; fur mah part Ah doan feel no bad ft'din. Aii
have shook Imn an mac eet hup wit de widduy beeforo Ah
have leeve de liouse dat evenin."

"I am glad to hear you did that," observed Jack, who
regarded the "\yidow Martin's horsey peculiarities with
favor, not to say admiration, and often had put up at lier
hospitable and cleanly hostelry on his various shooting and
sporting outings.

" Aw, yas," said Peter, " she have pologize fur what she
have say, an aftaire we poot hup de monnah on ban of
Ephraham Parent she have ax every wan what wus on de
bar fur took un petit JiUais at heur espence, and den Ah
have ax all of dem to took sumting wit me, and den sum
ov mah nabor what wus dare have treet, an udder folks
have treet, and seeng s,\xm. chanson Caiiadien, and ole Moyees
Duplesis wus dare wit bees veeoleen an play de feedle an
sum of dem have dance, an bah gosh I when Ah have drav
home bout ten o'clock dat naght, dar wus two black ponay
on de cutteur eensted ov de chesnut wan Ah have start wit
een de morning! "

"And 1 suppose the race is pretty well advertised,"
remarked Jack.

" Avtrtize 1 " exclaimed Peter, " You bet y^u In dat race
wus well avertize 1 Every wan wus talk ' eet at dp
church doer lass Sunday, and dare wus two o Sunday y i

" Yas, I guess you goan see de beegc. crowd dare
Hevair was on de hice on de lac shore, sure ting."

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"By Jove," saidJack, with youthful impulse aiul outhus*
iasm, " I'd like to go aiul see it of all things ! "

"i/rtw you was goan come to de race, Monsieur Jack,
ay?" exclaimed Peter, remonstratively as, after fumhling
about inside the breast of his overcoat, he produced a mam-
moth silver hunting case watch which he opened with a
click, looked at, and closed with a snap. " Dat was goan be
de beegess race any wares long de shore dees wintare."

"Yes, I have no doubt it will be,'* assented Jack, "but
I'm doubtful if I'll be able to get to it."

"J/aw/ Mais!'' exclaimed the owner of "dat leetle
chesnutplug" with a surprised look, as he arose from his
leaning posture upon the counter, " What fur you say dat,
Monsieur Jack? You wus doubtfool eef you wus goan
come I "

" Well, you see, some of the folks up at the house, '*
explained Jack — meaning by "some of the folks" his
father — "have been kicking up a row lately because of my
running about, as they call it, to all the races. I was down
at one on the Rouge last week, and I got fits when I came
back, I can tell you."

" Well, bah George 1" exclaimed Peter with an intonation
of disgust in his voice, as he pulled on his left glove
preparatory to taking his departure, "I tiidv folks muss
have mightay queerious noshun what objec to go an see an
horse race on de hice. Dey muss have what we calls een
French, mauvaise pensee bout he very ting, Ah guess."

" Well, ' said Jack, rousing up desperately, " I'm going
to try my best to go, anyway."

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" Dat's raght, Monsieur Jack, dat's raght, " assented Peter
approvingly, " you muss try you bess to cone, acose you
goan see de best race you nevaire see beefore, sure ting. "

" Yes, I'U be there if it's possible, " said Jack resolutely.

* An now I muss be go, " cried the sportive Canadian,
extending his ungloved right hand, *' mine you, Ah wus
goan espec you at Belle Riviere two week from ue^ Sateur-
day. So good-bye and took care ov yoseff on de meentam, "
and as he shook hands he patted the youth patronizingly
on the right shoulder.

" Good-bye Peter, " said Jack, heartily. " I'll be on hand
if it's on the cards, you can bet, "

" All raght, Monsieur Jack; Ah guess you goan be dare :
good-bye, " and Mr. Bertrand, with many graceful bows
and aurevoirs to the clerks behind the counter, strode up the
long store to the entrance and thence down to the ferry
crossing.

Peter was not wrong in taking it for granted that Master
Jack would be one of the large crowd who witnessed the
much talked of race between the Widow Martin's Crapaud
and " dat leetle chesnut plug " on that memorable January
afternoon on the lake shore near Belle Riviere.

Jack was there, and inasmuch as his being there marked
the outset of an important epoch in his life, a future
chapter will be devoted to a record of what transpired ou
that occasion.

CHAPTER lY.

I'll be on liand

Tlie Widow Martin and Her Pacing Pony "Crapaud.*'

"TT WOULD be like carrying coals to Newcastle to tell
-^ any ordinarily well informed votary of the trotting turf
of America, that the parent stem in the geological tree of
many of the most noted trotting and pacing performers of the
present phenominally cultivated period of these kinds of
speed trials and contests — the names of which are as house-
hold words to the general public — found its origin in the
Canadian family of French ponies.

They are properly called French because their original
ancestry was undoubtedly the Norman horse of France, and
they are equally appropriately called ponies, because, in
size, they are in most cases greatly degenerate progeny of
their parent stock.

But it is only in point of size that they are thus degenerate.

In respect of speed and intelligence they have gained
much, and in point of endurance they are notoriously the
peers of any other family of horses on this continent

It is probable that the predisposition with so many of the
breed to amble, or pace, which normally is swifter than trot-
ting, and the popular gait in speed contests among the old-
time Canadian habitants, was primarily superinduced by
crossing the Norman horse, of La Nouvelle France, with the
so-called Narragansett pacer of the English American colo-
nies. The latter breed of horses, it is asserted by a well-

(57)

tfi

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Priiiiiiiiiiiii

111 II

informed authority upon the subject, possessed "a line of
heredity that gave them certainty of speed and a certainty
of type as long ago as A. D. 1690." They were brought out
from Great Britain by the pioneer settlers of Virginia and
Ehode Island where it is said, by inbreeding, they estab-
lished a marked new-world identity of their own and attained
a speed of less than two minutes and thirty seconds to the
mile.

The same authority quoted above says that " the combi-
nation of these ( the Narragansett pacers ) with the French
stock imported from France in 1665 produced the Canadian
pacer." Then it is further probable that during the early
part of the subsequent English occupation of Canada, com-
mencing in 1761, these Canadian pacers were crossed with
the English thoroughbred, or well-bred hunter, from which
combination Old Piloi, a pacer, and the grandsire of Maud S,
probably originated.

Old Pilot was taken from Canada in a plebeian peddler's
wagon, and before he died in the States had made for him-
self the then unprecedented record of 2:26, with 165 pounds
on his back, and laid the foundation of a long line of reign-
ing kings and queens of the trotting turf.

Like the ancient progenitor of this dynasty of regal
horses, the large majority of Canadian ponies used in the
primitive habitant races ( chiefly on the ice ) in the lower
province fifty years ago were rackers or pacers. Through-
out the French settlements, on either side of the Detroit
river, these grotesque races were of frequent and common
occurrence, not only on the ice in the winter but also,
owing to the flatness of tbe country during the summer and

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3ssed "a line of
and a certainty
vera brought out
of Virginia and
ing, they estab-
)wn and attained
ty seconds to the

hat " the combi-
with the French
jed the Canadian
during the early
of Canada, com-
ere crossed with
iter, from which
dsire of Maud S,

ebeian peddler's
made for him-
with 165 pounds
mg line of reign-

ynasty of regnl
lies used in the
e) in the lower
cers. Through-
of the Detroit
nt and common
pointer but also,
the summer and

Iry autumn months, on the straight and level highways or
^urnpikes.

When purses were given in these contests, as they fre-
mently were, by the sporting country tavern-keepers
throughout the region, they usually consisted of a cow, or

sheep, or a pig — the reputed value of the animal being in
)roportion to the importance of the event and the amount
>f patronage it was likely to draw to the Boniface's hostelry.

If une vache de lonne race was offered, it meant that the pro-
josed contest was an affair above the ordinary, while a pig,
)r a sheep, or ten bushels of oats denoted a common every-
Saturday pastime for practic* and the training of incipient
iyers.

But this is, of course, representing a state of things which
Existed years ago.

During the period of this story, as we have learned from

'eter Bertrand's relation of how he came to match his

I'leetal chesnut plug" with the Widow Martin's renowned

Jrapaud, horse racing among the French along Detroit river

^nd Lake St. Clair had come down or gone up ( whichever

jrm the reader may deem best ) to a money basis.

The match twixt the v uow and Peter Bertrand was no
>rdinary event

It was the all-important race on the ice of the season, as
iqW because of the heretofore invincible reputation of the
ridow's Crapaud, as because of the fact that the general
public, not knowing what had transpired in the widow's
j>rush for the lead on New Year's eve, regarded the owner
^f the chestnut's pretensions as little short of insane. The
ridow had often before owned reputedly fast horses — in

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I '

111 I

fact, for years past slie had never been without a flyer of
some sort, either trotter or pacer — but no pony in point of
speed she had ever owned could compare with her present
black pacer, "Crapaud."

She had corae into possession of him through a judicious
trade made with a needy neighbor some five or six years
ago ; before he had developed the remarkable turn of s])eed
which had since vanquished so many contestants and gained
her so many wagers and purses. She never drove him in
any of his races herself. She left that usually to an expert
who rejoiced in the sobriquet of "Budd Doble, junior," but
whose proper patronymic was David Laduseur, whom Peter
Bertrand had been heard to describe as a " fuss class 7nac-
an-ique fur drav a pacin horse."

The widow, however, constantly drove Crapaud on the
road, and he had never failed to show his heels to anything
in the shape of a horse she wanted to pass, until she failed
to give " dat leetle chesnut plug " the go by, during that
memorable drive on the ice from town on New Year's eve,
This had been a potent cause of chagrin and disappointment
to her, and though she counted much on the superiority of
Mr. Budd Doble, junior's, " mac-an-ickal " powers as a
driver over her own pretensions in this regard, she none the
less looked foward to the coming event with secret forebod-
ings of a possible repetition of her previous experience in a
much more humiliating and disastrous form.

But to the outside world who visited her hostelry to talk
horse generally, and the'coming race in particular, she man-
ifested every confidence and scoffed at the bare idea of the
lijttle chestnut's having the slightest ghost of a show to win.

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ixperience in a

The truth is that this widow was a very remarkable per-
sonage. Not, as the reader might very naturally infer from
her occupation and manifest prediliction, a coarse, mascu-
line and repulsive creature, but on the contrary an exceed-
ingly agreeable mannered, and by no means unattractive
woman in point of personal appearance.

On the shady side of fifty with raven black hair, untinged
with gray, straight Grecian-like features, large expressive
brown eyes, a complexion rather ^nclined to a swarthy tint,
good firm mouth, and a straigUt upright figure, slightly
above the medium height, without the slighest tendency to
embonpoint or grossness, the widow Martin still possessed
the not uncomely remains of what in her youth must have
been very remarkable beauty.

She had been married twice. The first time because she
loved the man she became the wife of, and at his death
being left with a family of five children to provide for;
after a widowhood of two years, she had taken unto herself
as husband one Ebeneezer Martin, who was a short
remove from an imbecile, because she either did not care or
could not afford to pay a man for doing the chores about
the tavern and looking after the work about the farm.

She had kept tavern for many years, and it was always
known to the general public as her tavern.

About the only legacy the late Ebeneezer left her apart
from two additional children to look after, was the privilege
of thenceforth prefixing that attractive appellation " widow "
to the name of the hostelry.

As the Widow Martin's tavern, it was known throughout
the region as a very fair, cleanly maison de pension for trav-

fiisiil -

•62

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ellers, a local headquarters for aspiring politicians during
parliamentary election contests, and the winter place of
rendezvous of local horsemen for training and racing their
ponies on the lake ice near by when the weather permitted.
The hostelry, an unpretentious square frame building, was
situated on the lake side of the public highway, which runs
parallel with the shore, and a short distance from where
Belle river debouches its sluggish, turbid waters upon the
sandy shores of the St. Clair.

Back from the highway a short distance, the Great "West-
ern Kailway intersects the narrow farm very nearly at right
angles with its length, and this circumstance served as a
perennial source of litigation to the sportive and deter-
mined proprietress of the Widow Martin's tavern, in that her
animals were constantly being run over and maimed or
killed by the passing trains.

For several consecutive years she carried on a sort of
litigious vendetta against the railway company because of
these constantly recurring casualties among her kine, until
her name became a household word in the courts and
among the lawyers of the judicial district.

Indeed it was said that she was no mean lawyer her-
self. Albeit she was unable to read or write, her adroit-
ness and finesse m the witness box frequently elicited the
admiration of a crowded court room at the old County
Town of Sandwich.

During a spring term of the court, when the roads were
usually well nigh impassable for heavy vehicles, she in-
variably mounted an old-fashioned red wheeled trotting
sulky, and with a foot stretched out on the thills on either

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side of her pet pony she would reach the scene of her
pending legal battle witn comparative ease and expedition.

In short, Widow Martin was an enthusiast as to any matter
of serious concern she had in hand, and whatever she did she
did vigorously and with an eye to the triumphant carrying
of her point.

On the morning of the race the sun was still " held a
prisoner in the yet undawning East '* when she arose after
a night of fitful and uneasy rest, and, going to the stable
before Mr. Budd Doble, Junior, had put in an appearance,
with her own hands she sifted the oats and shook out the
small wisp of sweet timothy hay intended for Crapaud's
breakfast, which, after removing his crude muzzle she gave
him and watched him devour in a manner sufficiently
voracious to give her renewed courage in her contemplation
of the coming momentous event

"When Mr. Budd Doble, Junior, made his appearance in
due course, she thoroughly aroused him from his semi-
s Dmnolent condition by a vehement dissertation on the evils
of drink in respect of its bearing upon the nerves and
judgment of a driver of fast horses, which she wound up
by saying, " Now Dawveed, if you drink a single swallow
of whisky or any other kind of hoisson — mind you, one
single swallow — except what I give you until the race is
over, you and I part company forever, and I think you'll
travel a long way before you find a friend who will take as
good care of you as I have done. "

This conversation was of course carried on in French.

" Yes, Madame, " said David, yawning as if his jaws
would dislocate, at the same time stretching his arms out to

'r-'

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iMi! ■.'■■■! ;l;i:ili!li™

their full length above his head, " you have always been
very good to me. "

"Now last night, " pursued the widow, "I did not want
to interfere with your fun but I saw that you were drink-
ing too much and making too free with the people in the
bar, and I know that you went to bed drunk. "

" No, I didn't go to bed drunk either I" contradicted David
fiercely, as he pulled at the strap to unloosen the buckle of
the surcingle, which secured the blanket around the old
horse.

" Yes, you did, persisted the widow. . '

"No, I didn't."

" Yes, you did, I say, " repeated the relict of Ebeneezer
positively. , '

*' Well then, " loudly proclaimed David as he walked out
of the stall leaving the surcingle and blanket still on the
pony " if you will have it that I went to bed drunk I guess
I'd better not drive this horse in the race to-day !" and he
proceeded to button his thin coat at the top button close
under his fat double chin with trembling fingers.

" Aw I you needn't talk that way, " sneered the widow;
"you mustn't suppose that you are the only one I can get
to drive my horse. I can drive him myself if it comes to
that. "

" Well, then, drive him yourself ! " loudly exclaimed
David, as he moved his fat, short, dumpy figure towards
the stable door; "and groom him and take care of him
yourself, too I I don't care 1 You are always fussing and
fuming about the horse and interfering with my work. "

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" I don't want to interfere with your work, Dawveed," said
the widow, coming down from her perch of independence,
"and 1 don't want to drive the horse myself, either. Your
driving suits me very well, as I have told you before; but I
want you to keep sober for your own sake."

" I don't care a picayune for my own sake ! '* responded
David, " I only care for your sake and the old horse's sake."

" Yes, Dawveed, I believe you do think a great deal of the
old horse," said the widow, feelingly, "and I know you
know how anxious I am that he should win this race to-day.
Not for the sake of the money bet on the result, but only
because I don't want poor old Crapaud, who has been such
a good friend to me and cock of the walk for so long,
to be beaten. So we must, try to win this race."

" Win this race ! " exclaimed the much mollified Mr. Budd
Doble, junior, in tones of disgust at the bare thought of a
possibility ot the old horse not winning the race, "why, the
only way he can lose against that little chestnut rat is to fall
down or break through the ice, and I don't think either of
lliose accidents will happen him to-day. I only wish I was
as sure of getting to heaven as that the old horse will win
this race."

" "Well, my boy, I hope the result will prove that you are
right,'' doubtfully replied the widow, now completely
restored to good humor, with, however, a mental reserva-
tion of irrepressible inward doubt as to whether David
would ever get to heaven if his doing so depended upon
Crapaud's coming to the front to-day.

The fact was that Mr. Budd Doble, junior, did not know
the true inwardness ot what had taken place during the

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widow's repeated brushes for the lead on New Year's eve.
She herself, of course, did, but she had never had the abne-
gatory nerve either as to her own pride, or the prestige
attaching to her beloved Crapaud to tell David or any
one else of it, and she eagerly devoured the crumbs of com-
fort evolved from his ignorance of how great had been the
improvement in the speed capacity of Peter Bertrand's iive-
year-old chestnut in the last three months.

The threatening breeze of discord 'twixt the owner and
driver was, however, now entirely dispelled by the v/idow's
conciliatorily asking the latter whether he had had his bit-
ters yet. "You must feel like having une petite Jilb.is,
Dawveed," she said; "You haven't had anything yet this
morning, have you? "

" No, of course not," sulkily replied David ; "how could
I have got anything yet this morning? The bar is closed,
and I suppose you have got the key in your pocket!" and
with the collar of his closely buttoned coat turned up and
his coon skin cap pulled far down over his forehead and
eyes, with hands in his trouser pockets, he leaned up against
the tall oat bin near the stable door.

Upon this stood a coal oil lantern, with the flickering rays
of which the early dawning twilight now struggled for
supremacy.

"Come along then Dave, " said the widow as she took the
lantern up from the oat bin and proceeded towards the
entrance to the stable, "come to the house and I'll give you
an eye-opener, and then you can come out here and clean
the old horse off and do whatever else 3'ou have to do
before you take him out for his morning exercise. I

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suppose the crowd will commence to arrive early as we are
lilvely to have a fine, clear day and I'll be too busy to look
after it myself, so you must not neglect to take liim over to
the shop and liave his shoes, and particularly the hind ones,
set all right. "

"All right Madame, " responded Dawveed gruflly, as he
followed in the widow's wake to the house for his morning
bitters. " I'll look after everything all right, you can
depend. "

" And keep sober Dawveed for my sake ?" interrogated
the widow nervously and appealingly.

"Oh shawl of course I'll keep sober for everybody's
sake ! What do you take me for?" which exclamatory
query still remained unanswered as they reached the kitchen
door and passed into the house.

I :•

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CHAPTEll VI r.

TheFakert.

rX^IIE "WIDOW was right in her cstimato of tho weather
-^ prospects.

After struggling through an opaque bank of leaden grey
clouds which fringed the soutiieastcrn horizon, old Phoebus,
as if bent upon making the most of his brief journey
"down to the roscy west" shone forth in all his refulgent,
shimmering, winter glory, making the snow-clad, low-lying
shores and the vast, ice-bound, glittering lake tryingly
dazzling to the naked eye to contemplate.

By twelve o'clock noon a sufficiently large, eagerly
expectant crowd had arrived to tax to its utmost capacity
the widow s accommodation for man and beast.

The bar and sitting room, the former to the right and the
latter to the left of the front entrance hall of the hostelry,
were filled to overflowing with a jabbering, good-natured
crowd of sportive French yoemanry, interspersed with a
sprinkhng of English-speaking sharps and flats from the
town and city who had been attracted thither by the
unwonted importance of the coming event

The inevitable *' sweat board " and "Wheel of Fortune"
fakirs from the purlieus of urban civilization were duly repre-
sented. The former, by a dapper little man with glittering,
ratty eyes, who wore upon his greasy, frizzled head, a high
silk hat, a little cocked to one side, and in other respects as
well, bore the outward signs of an inward speculative spirit.

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He had not worn the high shiney hat on his journey from
town, but carried it carefully in the same box which con-
tained his gambling outfit, after the manner of peripatetic
actors in the transport of their wardrobes. Evidently he of
the ratty eyes deemed a reflective silk hat as indispensable
to a proper plying of the " sweat board " busimjs as was the
paste diamond cluster, which ornamented his Chinese-
laundried shirt front, and the huge Brumagei.i watch chain
which, after encircling his fat, rotund neck, ostentatiously
crossed his stifHy starched- immaculate bosom and modestly
terminated its utilitarian career by unobtrusively passing
through one of his low-cut waistcoat button holes and appear-
ing at his fob as an unpretentious and serviceable watch
guard.

He was an oleaginous little man, was this "sweat board "
speculator, and withal courteously polite and insinuatingly
diplomatic in Ids business method of address.

He had ens(!onced himself in a corner of the large bar-
room, and by a specious and mildly earnest and sincere
manner of putting the enriching qualities of the game of
" sweat board " to the crowd, was quietly plying his beguil-
ing vocation with moderately satisfactory results. After
repeated taps on the " sweat board " table to attract the
attention of the crowd he said : " Now, gents, here is the
little game we call " chuck-a-luck " in my country — an old
and familiar game to sporting speculators in ail parts of the
world.

" We play it a great deal in the country I come from.

"We play it there because it is a fair game, a square
game, a game of honest and legitimate chance, in which the

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novice stands as good a show as the oldest man in the
business. In fact, it Las been my experience of this honest
pastime that the man who plays it for the first time in nine
cases out of ten comes out a winner.

" Now, gentlemen, here's your opportunity." Here the
specious little man dived his right hand down into his
trouser pocket and pulled forth five twenty-dollar gold
pieces, and as he tossed them up from one hand to the or uer
he continued his preliminary remarks : "I brought these five
twenty-dollar gold pieces and a roll of United States
national currency along to-day, and if I don't do one of two
things with them before I go back to the city after the race
is over, I'll be a disappointed man. I am either going to
leave it here with you to invest in whatever charitable or
other institution you may deem worthy of your patrouage,
or in default of this, I fain would take the roll back so fat-
tened as to enable me to increase my already large contri-
bution to the Young Men's Christian Association Benevo-
lent Fund.

" Now, here's your chance gents, here's your chance ! It
will be two hours yet before the horses start in the race and
until that begins we are better here beside the fire than we
would be shivering with the cold outside. Come right along
then, gents, and try your luck. Twenty-live cents on the six,
he says. There you are, sir. Now then, sir, throw the dice
to suit yourself, remembering always that it is an invariable
rule of the game that you must cover them. Raise the box
with your own honest hands sir. Two sixes and a deuce.

There you are, sir ! You win twenty-five cents twice,
twenty-live cents two times, making a grand total of fifty

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cents. There you are, sir. Now drop the dice back into
the box — do it with your own honest hands — make your
bet and shake ' em up again ' *1^ suit yourself. Ah, there
you are again ! You win once again, sir. Keep right on
that way and I'll resign my membership in the Young
Men's Christian Association in your favor and seek
oblivion in the walks of private life."

However much of Greek to many of hia» hearers there
may have been in this stereotyped manner of address, it was
not without material results and the unctuous little faker
for a time drove a lively traffic in iive-, ten- and twenty -five-
cent pieces.

Ill the sitting room across the hall, the wheel of Fortune,
at a ten-cent basis, rotated ephemeral gains and ultimate
inevitable losses to its adventurous votaries.

It was manipulated by its owner who, in point of physique,
was an animated demonstration of u geometrical straight
line as possessing length without breadth. He was a tall
man with light tow-like hair and mischievously twinkling
grey eyes, and withal pigeon-toed and preternaturally long-
armed. He spoke English with a slight Yankee-French
twang and a humid splutter, as if his tongue performed some
sort of acrobatic somersault within his mouth at the
beginning and ending of each sentence he uttered.

Whatever he said, as Arbiter of Dame Fortune's specul';-
tive wheel, he said solemnly and with a sphinx-like rigidity
of countenance ; but while his outward form, and long
drawn-out, deliberate method of articulation savored of
church yards, and kindred sepulchral things, his small eyes
dazzled and danced beneath their quivering lids as if his

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whole personal make up and immediate surroundings were
a very amusing joke.

He stood forward to the left of the wheel, which was
placed within a few inches from the wall on an impromptu
platform so that any one in the room could easily distin-
guish the numbers upon it " Here, my friends," called out
this bizarre funereal -looking import in sonorous and stentor-
ian tones, " here is the Wheel of Fortune, the fairest and
'.'riendliest game known to man. It is so fair and so friendly
that the first time I ever saw it operate on the race track at
Detroit last fall I won enough money playing agin it to
become its owner; and here it is in all its original
innocence." Here he gave the wheel a push downwards,
which sent it flying around its axis \7ith lightning speed.
" Anybody can see that there is no chance for a gouge
here," he continued solemnly. " Anybody can see how she
works. Anybody can work her. That's the reason a
respectable gent from the country like yours truly owns her.
Nuthin mysterious about this ere gamel These are the
paddles ( holding them up ) , twenty of them, with five of
the one hundred numbers on the wheel on each one of
them. At ten cents a paddle there will be two dollars in the
pool. I turn the wheel in this manner, and whenever she
stops that there Injun rubber indicator will pint to a certain
number, and whoever holds the paddle with that number on
it rakes in the pot, less ten per cent for the poor. Here is a
charitable game for you, my friends. A simple game for
honest folks. A. fair game ; a square game. Every man
who plays it is on equal terms with every other man in the
pool. Only ten cents per paJdle. One shove of the wheel,

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and when she stops rollin, two dollars to the winner, less
ten per cent for the deservin poor I Come, my friends;
here are your puddles. Ten cents ? Yes, only ten cents.
Five of em to or>e gent! There, sir, hope you'll git thar,
my friend. Only one .more paddle — here you are, my
friend ! One more paddle to sell and the game is made.
Come, be quick about it I or here she goes, and I keep it
myself; and I'll probably win the pot, cos I'm terrible
lucky play in agin this ere wheel. Do you want it, sir?
Yes, sir, only ten cents. Here's the lucky one! Who
wants it? Ten cents? Yes, sir. Thank you, my friend.
And now, gents, the game is made, and here she goes I "

Thus the game once started, the Doctor, as this serio-
comic sepulchral-looking faker was familiarly nicknamed,
found no difficulty in keeping it going until the news
reached the house that the start for the first heat in the race
was about to take place, whereupon there occurred a general
stampede of his speculative patrons to the track along the
frozen lake shore, now glittering in the sunshine, and
marked well nigh throughout its entire straight mile of
length by groups ^nd detached patches of every description
of man and horsekind known to the neighborhood.

Every sort of winter conveyance used by the habitants
was there represented, from the crude jumper and traino,
with its tall, upright wood rack, to the cariole and old
fashioned family sleigh, which usually contained two or
more of the tenderer sex in holiday attire.

Meanwhile, every available inch of shelter afforded by
the widow's tavern, and the sheds and stables of her
neighbors were filled to overflowing with horses and ponies

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?«►

of the better sort driven thither by' sporting patrons from a
distance,

Amonp; the last of these to arrive were Jack Kathbone
and his boon companion, Charley Ford, of Detroit, in a
half-famished condition after their long drive. The former
by a russe which will hereafter be referred to, managed to
steal away from the paternal domicile with his grey pony
and well appointed cutter, and picking up his friend as
previously arranged, had succeeded in making a late start
from the city. They had made up for lost time a bit by
driving the distance, about twenty miles, in two hours
and five minutes by the watch, and the grey pony, a little
thing not quite fourteen hands in height, presented a some-
what jaded appearance in consequence, when they pulled up
in the back yard of the widow's tavern. Jack, who was
always considerate of animals, not without considerable
difficulty, because of the crowd, personally saw to the com-
fortable bestowal of the little mare before he and his com-
panion sought the house for refre^ment and food to
hurriedly appease their vigorous, youthful appetites.

The widow had driven a great trade, both in the dining
room and bar, but notwithstanding this, throughout all the
incidental din of crush and crowd, anxiety as to the result
of the coming event was ever uppermost in her mind.

She could not rid herself of constantly reviving thoughts
of how futile had been her efforts to give Peter Bcrtrand
and the little chestnut the go-by on New Year's Eve.

"Crapaud" was still the favorite with the crowd at oddj
and she had been on the point of remonstrating with several

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of lier acquaintances who had betted two and three to one
on the old horse, but then this would have betrayed her
rankling, inward doubt of the result, and entailed an
explanation of the circumstance of her lamentable failures
in her brushes for the lead during that memorable drive
from town on the last day of the year just past. What !
let the world about her suspect the chagrin and humiliating
annoyance she had felt because of that episode? No,
indeed, she was a woman every inch of her, albeit her
horsey tastes, and like a woman she clung to the impression
of what there might in the end prove to be no necessity for
mentioning to anybody.

The old horse might win in to-day's race.

In fact, with the exception of a few of Peter Bertrand's
nearest friends, it was the very general opinion that it would
prove a walk-away for Crapaud, and although she felt from
what she had seen of the little chestnut's speed that this
could not very well be, still, the old horse as driven by Mr.
• Budd Doble, Junior, might come to the front, aud in that
event her silence upon the subject of her futile brushes for
the lead during that drive from town would prove the proper
thing to have done ; and she certainly never would allow her
dear old horse to start in a race again.

If Peter Bertrand's pony had only had an established
reputation on the local turf she would not so much mind
being beaten by him ; but to be vanquished by a green five-
year-old, whose owner she had patronized with such absurd
and annoying consequences, was more than she could com.
fortably contemplate.

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She was full of these nervous misgivings when, leaving the
work in the dining room and kitchen for her eldest daughter,
Rosalie, and hired girl to look after, she hurriedly encased
herself m a fur jacket and close-fitting, fur trimmed hood
and sallied forth to witness the first heat

CHAPTER VIIL

Tfie Race on the Ice.

"TUST AS the widow flounced out of the back door
^ entrance of the hostelry, Jack Rathbone and Charley
Ford crossed the yard from the barn.

Seeing the young men she called out, excitedly, *' Hello,
Monsieur Ratbone ; Ah v^us glad to see you not forgot to
come to de race. And you, too, Monsieur Ford, I wus glad
to see you here to-day."

" How de do, Madame Martin," said Jack as he approached
her with outstretched hand. "No, we couldn't keep away
from the race, and we have arrived here pretty nearly starved.
Have you got anything to eat left in the house? "

"Well, Ah doan know; Ah guess so, dough," said the
widow, shaking hands with the young men hurriedly;
" come een dis way trough de keetchen an ax Rosalie eef she
coon't git you sumting."

"Is Miss Rosalie in the house?'* eagerly enquired Mr.
Ford, with whom the young lady in question — a pretty,
brown-eyed girl of eighteen — had flirted on the ocoasion of
ft previous sojourn at the widow's during one of his and
7ack Rathbone's shooting expeditions in the neighborhood.

" Oh, yes, you will fine Rosalie een de keetchin, Ah
guess. We have be so beesay; dare wus such a crowd
here for dinner dat we wus moss run oU of our leg. Ah have
only jews be able to got way now, and eef Ah doan hurrjr Ah
goan mees de fuss heat; so you muss please excoose me."

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"How is the race going to come out, do you think, Mrs.
Martin ? " cried Jack as the widow swiftly and excitedly
set out for the lake shore.

"Oh, Ah doan know," she called back, shrugging her
shoulders and smiling nervously ; "Ah goan toll you bet-
taire aftaire de fust heat."

" I have never seen the old lady so excited about any-
thing before," observed Charley Ford to Jack.

"Neither have I. She has evidently set her heart upon
winning this race, and is not by any means certain as to
how it's coming out But we must hurry and interview
Eosalie and see whether she can't get a sandwich or a cold
bite of something we can carry in our hands and eat on our
way down to the track, or we'll miss the first heat See !
Look I The horses are warming up for the start now."

" Yes, I see," replied Ford, " You can get there as soon as
you please. I'm going to take it easy and wait until
Eosalie is ready to go."

" Perhaps she is not going to the race at all," suggested
Jack.

" In that case I'll not go to the race either," replied Mas-
ter Ford, laughing, as they passed through the little lean-to
outside summer -kitchen into the larger inner one, still redo-
lent of comfortable warmth, fried onions and other culinary
odors, ravishingly tantalizing to the young men's sharpened
appetites.

Meanwhile the widow reached the coming-in score ( upon
which, in a two-seated cariole, sat the three judges ) in ample
time to see the horses start from the other end.

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•* Clar de track ! Got off de way, " shouted the stoutest
and most important looking one of the judges standing up
on the forward seat of the judicial sleigh. " Clar de track
dare ! De horses wus jews goan start — mac dose folks stan
beck dare Ephraham ! Look out, d'ave start ! No, she's no
start ! Dey wus go back agin. "

And they did go back again a half a dozen times before
they got the word for the start, with the experienced old
Crapaud, famous as a rapid scorer, having a little the best
of it.

But he did not retain this advantage long.

" Dat leetle chestnut plug " soon demonstrated the fact
that he possessed quite as much speed as his competitor by
drawing up on even terras with the old horse, and for two-
thirds of the mile they whizzed along at a 2:30 gait so nearly
abreast of each other and so close together that the pro-
verbial blanket could have covered the pair.

It was a very exciting heat — every inch of the way
being struggled and striven for with stubborn persistency
by both horses and their drivers, who yelled unearthly
howls of caution and encouragement, commencing slowly
with the lowest note in the gamut and gradually ascending,
with accelerating speed, to the apex of the scale, would burst
forth into a series of yelps and whoas, and " gee-long dare,
mon sacre poUison."

The little chestnut completely astounded the gaping, noisy
crowd of excited on-lookers, who lined either side of the
last quarter of a mile of the track, by actually out-footing
the heretofore invincible Crapaud, and driving him to a
break, the gamy old horse irretrievably lost at least

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Sciences
Corporation

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23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, NY. 14S80

(716) 873-4503

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two lengths — about the distance between the two when
the triumphant chestnut crossed the winning score, amid the
loud acclamations of the astonished on-lookers.

Great was the excitement of the enthusiasts as they
circled around, and pressed forward to pat the little chestnut
with their homespun mittened hands as he returned to the
winning post to await the arrival of the starting judges
from the other end of the track to report to their confreres at
the finish whether or not the start was a fair one.

Impressive was it to behold Peter Bertrand's countenance
beaming with surpressed triumph and excitement as he
nimbly moved his Herculean form about, tremblingly
assaying to tuck within the shafts a disreputable-looking,
old, wadded, patch quilt he had succeeded in throwing over
the steaming equine hero.

In reply to the congratulations of surprised friends he
exclaimed, " Comment mes amis / voits me prendre pas pour
un fou eh ?" and then catching Jack Rathbone's eager eye,
"You see Monsieur Jack, what Ah wus toll you have
come true ay? Dee'nt Ah toll you we wus goan geeve de
widday's great Crapaud pootay hard poosh to-day?"

"Yes, Peter!" exclaimed Jack with fervor, "you're a
true prophet, and no one on this ice is better pleased than I
am," and struggling through the surging crowd of jabber-
ing admirers of " dat leetle chesnut plug " he shook Peter's
brawny, outstretched hand with all his might.

" Tank you, tank you, Monsieur Jack ; Ali taught you
would not mees dees. Ah wus look fur you beefore"

The starting judges not having yet arrived to give their
report, Peter's pony and sleigh was slowly led back and

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ff,

forth past the judges' sleigh by his driver, a stubby little
man of any age, with bandy legs and a suspiciously rubi-
cund complexion, from the corner of whose thick lipped,
half-open mouth there trickled down a liberal oozing of
tobacco juice.

"Have you got much beside the stake bet on the result,
Peter," enquired young Kathbone as he walked along side
the latter. in the wake of the pony and sleigh.

" No, Ah have not got nutting wort speaking bout on de
race, and dat what's mac me feel lac keeckin meseff now 1 "

"How much have you got bet? " enquired Jack.

"Beesides de stakes wit de widday ? "

"Yes."

" Honlay tree to fahve two tarn," deprecatingly responded
Peter, "an eef Ah honlay hav nuff confeedence Ah could
have ween more's wan hundred dollair, sure ting."

" And you have only bet three to five twice. Do you
mean in dollars?"

" No, not bote of dem. One of dem wus een quarteur, an
de udder wan wus een dollair."

" Then you only stand to win six dollars and twenty-five
cents outside the stake."

" Yas, Ah guess dat's all," regretfully assented Peter as
he shifted the bucket and large sponge he was carrying
from one hand to the other. "Dat's what mac me feel so
mad wit meseff now, acose Ah'm sure we wus goan ween."

"Well, I am glad that you feel so certain about it,"
replied the youth. " Glad for my own sake, too, because
ril win five dollars which I bet since I arrived here on the
strength of what you told me the other day m the store

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iMA

about your brush with the widow on New Year's eve. But
do you feel quite sure the little fellow will last the race
out?"

"What! JLaas out de race?" indignantly exclaimed
Peter with sidelong glances at his young friend. "WI13',
mon ami, dat pony wus de son ov mah ole trottin mare
'Lizay Durand,' and she's nevaire know how to quit 1 An
hees faddeur wus de St Louis pacin horse, and he wus good
wan, too. Oh, no! Ah doan scare fur dat wuss a cent."

" Then you must have raised the colt yourself. I always
thought you bought him from somebody a year or so ago.
Didn't Charley Maisonville, of the Dew Drop Inn at Walker-
ville, have him at one time?

"Aw, yss, Farrow Maisonville have him leetle while
bout wan year ago now. But he wus honlay break heem
an train heem fur me, you know. Aw, yas. Ah have raise
heem mesefE," and Mr. Bertrand lowered his head in ratify-
ing satisfaction.

"Have you given him any name yet?"

" Well, we alway calls him Deck to home," replied Peter,
shrugging his shoulders doubtfully.

"But I mean have you given him any racing name? "

"Aw well, de byes mongst de nabor 'roun whores Ali
leeve calls heem ' Hup-an-go consan' or 'Hop-an-go-
consan. ' Ah doan know what's dat mean. Does you
Monsieur Jack?" confidentially enquired Peter with a
bewilded expression of countenance.

" Up-and-go-constant !" repeated Jack laughingly, " Oh
I don't know whether I can explain what it means, but I
do know that the boys must have meant to make fun of

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him when they gave him such an absurd name as * Up-and-
go-constapx. ' "

'' Yas, Ah guess dat's a fac, " ruefully assented Peter,
"dey want's to mac fun an fooleesliness ov heem, but Ah
tink dey wus goan change dare toon aftaire dees, an Ah
goan geeve heem good nam you see. '

"What do you think of calling him?" queried Jack.

"Well Ah doan know, " said Peter, dubiously shrugging
liis broad slioulders. " Ah have not zaclay feex on dat yit
you see — mais how does you tink Yelier Deek would
soot?'»

" Yellow Dick 1" exclaimed Jnck, with an effort to keep
his face straight. *' Why nobody ever heard of a yellow
horse !"

" Well, Ah guess he wus pootay nigh yelier, wus'nt he?"
expostulated Peter.

" Oh, no ; he is a good many shades off being yellow, "
remonstrated Jack.

" Yas, " admitted Mr. Bertrand, doubtingly, " praps he
wus not zaclay yelier, what you calls reglar yelier pure et
simple you know, mais he wus dirtay yelier — jews luc as
eef he wus go and roll een dee dirt somewares ain't eet?"

" Oh, no, he is a long way off from being yellow. He is
a chestnut; that's the proper name for his color — and one
of thf; prettiest shades of chestnut, too. Why not call him
Chestnut Dick?"

" Aw, no ; Chesnut wus too ole fur young horse lac he
was. No, we lyiuss tink ov sum udder nam."

At this juncture, the starting judges having arrived and
reported that the start for the first heat was all fair and

J-.ft

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right, the fat, winning post judge scrambled to an upright
posture upon the front seat of the judicial vehicle, and call-
ing out "Seelancel Seelance, mes amis! Sliut hup you
mout, dare! Hole on, dare I Leesen 1 " managed to bring
the crowd to a sufficiently long period of quietude to
announce the result of the heat. He said: " De horse ov
Peirro Bertran have ween de fust heat all fair an square;
so we have deside we goan geeve dat heat to heem. No tarn
wus took.'*

Evidently this ponderous judge was disposed to be loqua-
cious and spin out his official announcements to as great
length as might be ; but the crowd, in its excitement, was
in no humor for unnecessary verbiage, and any further
remarks from the judges* sleigh would have been drowned
amidst the cheers and counter cheers and yells of the
noisiest portion of the crowd as they stampeded for the
widow's hostelry for refreshments.

" How does you tink de nam ov " Louis Papineau "
would soot mah ponay, Monsieur Jack ? " enquired Peter,
resuming the conversation interrupted by the judge's
announcement

"Yes, that wouldn't be a bad name," responded Jack.
"Neither would 'Louis Kiel.' "

" Aw, no, no ! " objected Mr. Bertrand ; " ' Louis Riel *
wus too onluckay. De udder wan wus bettaire. Ah guess
dare wus no wan mongst us French Canadien dat have da
so much good fur bees compatriots as Papineau."

"Yes, I have always heard that Papin^-au was a great
man, and quite a benefactor to his country, "

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"Well, Ah (loan know what's dat mean, mats Ah'ra sure he
wus grate mans an grande hero, too !" asserted Peter whose
limited knowledge of the historical status of Papineau was
purely an outcome of hearsay tradition.

"But Papineau has been dead some years, has he not?"
asked the youth.

" Aw, yas, av course he wus dead long tarn ago, more as
feeftay year, Ah guess — but bah gosh ! Ah toll you he
wus grate mans dough 1" and the Herculean owner of " dat
leetle chesnut plug' confidently, and with an air of
mystery slowly nodded his head back and forth as if he
could a tale unfold illustrative of the prowess and acumen of
his dead compatriot, which would paralyze his youthful
listener.

But he desisted, and Jack, pursuing the subject of a
suitable name for the pony said, "But do you think
Peter that it's quite the right thing to call a living horse
after a dead man ? It's scarcely fair to the horse, and I don't
think it could exactly be regarded as a very high honor
to the dead to call a race horse after him. "

" Well, maybe not, " responded Peter with a demonstra-
tive shrug of his shoulders.

" Now, I'll tell you what I'll do with you Peter, " con-
tinued Jack, blushing as if he were about to perpetrate a
most audacious suggestion, "If you call that pony after me,
I'll give him the best and thickest blanket I can buy for
money, and have his name marked upon it in handsome
letters. "

" What ! " cried Peter, coming to a stand, " Call heem
Jack Ratbone? "

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"Yes," said Jack, timidl}'^, nodding his head.

"Bah gosh, Ah'U do eetl Ah goan call heem Jack Rat-
bone ; shook han wit me 1 " and he changed the half filled
water bucket from his ham-like right, to his left hand, and
shook Jack's diminutive palm with a vigorous confirmatcry
grip.

Then approaching the judges he said, "Genseemans,
jewjes, beefore dees race beegin Ah have toll you dat mali
horse have got no nam. Dat was de trute at dat tarn.
Mais now eet ees deeferant ting; Ah have jews chreesen
heem. Aftaire dis he weel be know bah de nam ov " Jack
EiiLbone." Then turning to the crowd behind him he
launched out into a mixture of French and English explana-
tion. ^^Cette jeune homme,^* he said, putting his hand
lightly on the blushing Jack's shoulder, " est lefils de Mon-
sieur Robert Rathone de Detroit^ un de mes grandes amis. Moss
ov de folks roun here knows heem, Ah guess."

" Aw, GUI I Nous connait bten. II est un de nous autresP*
shouted certain of the large-lunged crowd.

" Oui mes amis Jack Ratbone," reasserted Peter deliber-
ately, as he slowly nodded his head back and forth. " Jack
Ratbone wus goan be de nam of dat leetle Deeck aftaire
dees."

" Hoorah pour Jack Ratbone I "

" Uestun de nous autres 1 "

" Eh bien / Comment? Hoorah pour nous autres den I "
variously exclaimed the effervescent admirers of the pony's
new name among the crowd.

And what were the feelings of our bipedal young friend
Jack Rathbone himself while this was going on ?

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Had tho Crown of Great Britain and Ireland, or what in
his own estimation would have been far better, the Presi-
dential toga of the United States suddenly fallen upon him,
the mantling glow of proud satisfaction, which sent his
warm young blood coursing through his veins to his bright
young face and well shaped head, could not have thrilled
his heart with greater momentary happiness. To have so
promising and fast a young horse named after him! What
beatitude! And as if to signalize the auspicious event the
temporarily hidden sun now emerged from behind a flying
cloud and again shed forth his dazzling rays upon the
hilariously gathering crowd (now rapidly returning from the
widow's tavern) in gratefully warm and resplendent glory.

There was an indefinable something about this precocious
young American, which drew older, middle-aged people and
very young childien to him.

He had inherited a certain sort of Frenchy vivacity from
his mother which the English stolidity of his father had
toned down into a remarkably unassuming and agreeable
manner.

He could not carry on a sustained conversation in French,
but he could understand the Canadian patois and appre-
ciated the quaintness of the habits and customs peculiar to
these simple minded people. "While they, on the other
hand, through his mother, regarded him as partly, if not
wholly, one of themselves.

As we have seen, from his early youth he had mixed
much with them in his shooting outings along the lake and
river, and in attending the sort of gatherings he was at

f.)

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to-day; and his popularity had grown with his increasing
acquaintance and his advancing young manhood.

So that Peter Bertrand, apart from considering the
promised horse blanket as an incentive (and it is only fair
to say that it had but little weight in inducing him to do
so) was not far astray in naming his equine hero after his
young Detroit friend. In fact it had the effect of increasing
the little chestnut's popularity with the crowd, if that were
possible, in view of his amazing performance in the first
heat.

" Hoorah pour Jack Ratbone I" went up on all sides, and
was becoming more universally acceptable, when one of
the winning post judges vociferously rung a large dinner
bell, preliminary to calling the horses up for the second
heat

" Now genseemans I" shouted the fat judge, after he had
succeeded in balancing himself in an upright position on
the forward seat of the judicial sleigh. "You muss keep
ordeurl Took yo horses down to de startin poss f ur de
seconde heat Does you hear me, you draveurs ? "

" Aw, yas, Ah hears you Monsieur Badeeshow, " replied
the bandy-legged driver of " dat leetle chesnut plug."

*' Does you hear me, Dawveed ? " yelled the judge to the
driver of Crapaud,

" Aw, yas. Ah hears you," sulkily responded Mr. Budd
Doble, junior.

The bandy-legged driver of the chestnut now stopped his
vibratory leading of his charge, and taking the bucket of
water from Peter, gave the little fellow two or three swal-
lows preparatory t shecking him up and getting ready to

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obey the judge's behest. Nudging Peter, who stood al<^ng-
side him, ready to remove the patch quilt oflE tlie pony at
the last moment, he said : *' Regard done la vielle atw sa
bouttiele noiVe!" and then he shouted out to the driver of
Crupaud : " Aw, Dave, you kin geevc de olo feller all (U;
wheeskey you wants j Ah kin beat him drunk or sobeur
to-day!"

" Oh, jrou goan drown youseff," snarled back Mr. Doble,
junior.

" Not beefor Ah've berray you ! " yelled he of the bandy
legs, as he drove off up the glistening track to warm up for
the second heat.

Meanwhile, with dampened ardor, a small crowd of
doubting supporters surrounded Crapaud as he was being
made ready to go up for the start. Dave, his driver, was
vainly trying to staunch the oozing blood from a small cut
on the gamey old fellow's quarter, when the widow, excited
and out of breath, with a black quart bottle in hand, elbowed
her way through the sympathetic little crowd and put her
unoccupied hand upon the driver's shoulder as he bent over
the mjured near forward foot, which he held between his
slightly bent knees. . ■

Handing the black bottle to Mr. Doble, junior, she said :
" Dar, Dawveed, put some of dees on dat cut ; took a swal-
ler yoseff, and den geeve de balance to de poo ole feller
heemseff," and in response to her equine pet's whinny of
recognition either of the bottle or herself, she affectionately
patted him upon his arched neck. "Nevaire mine, mah po
ole feller; you not goan cut yo foot agin does heat. Ah
hope. You goan show dem what you kin do dees tam,

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ifevtiiliilllii

ftint you?" Then, na If tlerlving renewed courngc and con-
fidence from tliis monologue, she placetl her arms nkimbo,
her hands resting on her hips, and turning to the small
crowd behind her, she confidentially and with an intonation
of banter said : " Ah nevalre see de ole horse go back on
hees wheeskey yit 1 Eet always macs hecm bout ten secon
fasser when he gits eet at de raght tani. "We'll see what we
goan see beefor decs heat ecs ovaire I" and wanning into n
throe of confidence she called out loudly: "Anybody on
dees crowd dats want bet ten dollair hove.i on dees heat
come decs way, an Ah goan commodate hecm 1 "

But no one responded to this banter. . Ten dollars over-
sized their pile. Many of them had already bet odds on
Crajiaud before the first heat, and having spent the remain-
der of their available capital in Bacchanalian refreshments,
were left without a stiver to hedge with. "Whistling to keep
theircourage up, and demonstrative sympathy for the widow
and her black champion with a view to future free drinks,
were the only recourses left open to them.

After a religious observance of the widow's instructions
as to the "swaller " for his own inner man, Mr. Budd Doble,
junior, elevated the old horse's head, and inserting the
mouth and neck of the black bottle in the corner of his
jaws, poured its contents down his throat, to the manifest
satisfaction of Crapaud himself as well as of his witnessing
bipedal sympathizers.

Then the relict of the late Ebeneezer the Second held the
reinvigorated pony by the head and encouragingly patted
him upon his head and foretop, while Dave, having gotten
into the sleigh, gathered up the reins, and tucking in a well

BORDER CANUCKS.

nigh hairless old yellow bufTalo skin closely about his
unpoetic, dumpy body, was ready for the wanning up, just
ns tl»e fat judge called out: "What's de maltaire dare,
Dawveed ? Eef you doan hurray up wo not goan got trough
to-night, for suro!''

"All rnghtl All raglitl" yelled Mr. Doble, junior, in
reply; "Lefi go hees head, MeessesI'*

" Say, Dawveed ! " excitedly excl rned the widow as she
let the anxious pony's head go, and ii rriedly going to the
side of the cutter ( unconsciously adopting Enp'ish in her
flurry ) she audibly whispered : ' Wlion you gits up to do
tartin poss, Dawveed, call Moyees L: leur to wan side au
wheespear to heem dat eef he doan c^eeve you good start,
Ah goan mac heem pay dat monnay i right away I Iloes
know what you mean! Mine you doan forgib dot, Daw-
veed 1" And David, nodding his coon skin cap in assenr^
gave the old horse his head and drove rapidly up the track
towards the starting post.

It may be well here, by way of explanation of this final
enjoinder of the widow's to mention the fact that Moses
Lafleur, one of the starting judges, was a delinquent debtor
of hers in the sum of six dollars for an alleged well-bred
ram lamb.

And now all was in readiness for the start for the second
heat.

Jack Rathbone, still radiant with pride and excitement,
had secured a seat along-side his friend Peter Bertrand, on
top of a peddler's van sleigh; while his campagnon de voyage
and fdus achates, Charley Ford, true to his expressed deter-
mination, had become the cavalier of Eosalie Martin, and

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shortly after their arrival at the track they had joined a jolly
party of by no means ill-looking girls, who had^ a com-
fortable double-box sleigh with plenty of straw at the
bottom of it, and was otherwise supplied with robes and
wraps, all to themselvea

The sleigh had been pulled up about a hundred yards
from the winning post immediately alongside of the last
quarter stretch and here, as the solitary male guardian
escort, apart from the old habitant driver and chaperon,
father of one of the girls, Mr. Ford wa:; in his most
acceptable element , »

Indeed this young gentleman was essentially a ladies' man
and ever on the alert for conquests among the fair sex. He
was a tall, well developed, light haired youth, a year or two
older than young Rathbone, whom he sufficiently resembled
to be easily taken for his brother, and in fact, strangers
meeting them lor the first time together invariably set them
down as eminating from one common parental source. They
were, however, the very opposite of each other in respect of
their tastes and inclinations, a not very infrequent peculiarity
between near friends — and from their childhood up had
been boon companions. Young Ford had often accompanied
Jack Rathbone on the latter's frequent shooting and fish-
ing outings over the border into Canada, not so much because
of his fondness for fishing or field sports as for his love for
the incidental adventures these expeditions sometimes
afforded.

" Hello there. Jack !" called out this dude-like Lothario
from his seat amidst the bevy of girls.

"Hello yourself, " shouted Jack back cheerily.

BORDE.. CANUCKS.

" These young ladies, " yelled Mr. Ford "want to know
whether we won't stop for the dance at the widow's to-night.
They say it's going to be a grand allair. I tell them it all
depends upon you, and they want to know what you're
going to do about it?"

" Time enough to answer that after the race is over!" cried
Jack, "but I know I'll catch Jessie if I don't get home
to-night I"

And then Mr. Ford was subjected to a rigid cross-
examination by his fair companions as to who the inevitable
Jessie was who stood so imminent a chance of catching so
desirable a parti as " Monsieur Jack Ratbone. "

" Clar de track ! Clar de track !" shouted the fat judge
after one of his confreres had attracted the attention of the
noisy crowd by demonstratively ringing the resonant dinner
bell. " Clar de track I Got hoff de way ! de horses ees bote
at de startin poss and weel be comin een a meenit now I
Git to wan side or udder, you folkes what stan een de meedle
of de road dare! Clar de track genseemani Got hoff de
way, mes amis.

"Dare hoff! Dare hoff! Dare dey goes! Hooray!"
shouted a maudlin old countryman, whose ^^'^rsistent prac-
tice at the bar of the widow's hostelry throughout the day
had rendered him totally unable to distinguish a hole in a
ladder fifty feet away. None the less, the crowd took up
the refrain " Dare off! Dare off ! Clar de track, here dey
comes!" and all was eager, palpitating excitement among
the abbreviated specimens of the crowd and those who, not
being upon bome elevated foothold, were unable to see any-

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thing of what was going on at the starting score at the
upper end of the track.

There were a great many false alarms of this kind among
the thickest of the gathering along the quarter stretch before
the word was given for the start — as much time having been
consumed in scoring as often aggravatingly takes place in
an important race for a large purse upon the regular turf.

When, however, the ponies did get away, as in the first
heat, Crapaud had rather the best of it, thus making it a
fair matter for speculation whether or not Monsieur Moses
Lafleur's ram lamb indebtedness to the widow had at all
influenced him in the exercise of his judicial futictions.

However that may be, Crapaud did not long retain his
advantage, for the chestnut, coming with a rush, soon lapped
him, and they paced on side and side — their drivers sending
forth the most unearthly j^ells — to the half mile.

Here, owing to a little unsteadiness on the part of "dat
leetle chesnut plug,"' Crapaud got a slight lead — perhaps
half a length or so — which he held to the commencement of
the last quarter, amidst the approving yells and acclama-
tions of the widow's division of the assembled crowd along
the stretch. But the poor old horse's bolt was shot, how-
ever, for the newly, christened "Jack Rathbone," coming
with an unprecedented burst of speed, threw the old fellow
off his feet, utterly demoralized and unable to regain his
lost advantage, while the little chestnut, coming on as steady
as a steam motor, crossed the score four or five lengths to
the good, amidst the wildest shouts of excited approbation.

Then there was a rush and a scramble for positions as
near as possible to the judges' sleigh, as the victorious chest-

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nut, having stopped and turned about, was being led back
to the winning post by his highly elated owner.

This was a triumphal march difficult of accomplishment,
owing to the eager desire of every man and boy composing
the concourse of enthusiasts through v/hich the victor had
to pass, to put their hands upon him or give him a pat of
approval

But with poor old Crapaud, how different was it I

The heretofore invincible victor of many a hard-fought
contest had come to grief. He had again cut his quarter,
this time far worse than in the first heat, and the blood
trickled down from his near fore foot, as with bowed head
he held it up off the ice in manifest pain. Mr. Budd Doble,
junior, his driver, had gotten out of the cutter and, uncheck-
ing him, stood at his head patting his drooping neck in
helpless sympathy, as dejected looking as the poor old horse
himself — while the widow bent over the injured foot in tear-
ful and speechless lamentation. Evidently her idolized
Crapaud was hors de combat, and to start him for the third
heat would be too cruel to think of.

Silently she turned from this melancholy spectacle and,
going to the judges, she announced her withdrawal of her
horse and her relinquishment of the stakes in accents broken
with irrepressible grief.

After a short consultation among themselves, the resonant
clangettay-clang of the dinner bell again arose above the
din of excitement, presaging a judicial pronunciamento of
some sort

Monsieur Badeeshow, the Falstaffian spokesman-judge,
having struggled to his feet on the forward seat of the judicial

.i ^;,,

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sleigh, after comparatively silent attention was secured,
cleared his throat and said, • Genseemans! Madame Martin
have witdrawed Crapaud iiom de race an geeve hup de
stake I"

This announcement was met with conflicting acclamations
of approval and loudly vehement expressions of dissent,
and the judge could deliver nothing further of his pro-
nunciamento and be heard.

Those who had bet upon the little chestnut, or who were
otherwise in sympathy with Peter Bertrand, were unstinted
in their expressions of approval of the widow's course in
withdrawing Crapaud from the contest.

It was the very thing she ought to have done, because he
did not stand the ghost of a show to win. While those
who had bet upon the poor old horse said the whole thing
was a put up job to rob them of their money, and the
individual sportsmen among this division who had respect-
ively lost all the way from twenty-five to fifty and seventy-
five cents were especially chagrined and loudly demonstra-
tive in their manifestations of disapproval.

At one time the hub-bub arising from these contentious
expressions of opinion appeared to forebode a free fight, and
the atmosphere seemed redolent of war; but happily the
dogs were not slipped and the cloud rolled by.

After much vociferous ringing of the dinner bell, which,
for a time rather contributed to the pandemonium-like con-
dition of things than otherwise, the judge, by dint of not a
little violent gesticulatory yelling, succeeded in calming the
crowd sufficiently to proceed with what he *had to say,
"GenseemanI mesamisi Silence un moment i Wan horse,"

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he continued, "coo'nt run agin heemseff ! (Cfe bien vrais! Ce
la verite from the crowd.) Wan horse coo'nt pass heemseff
een de race. (Dat's a fac.) Wan horse coo'nt come
behine heemseff een wan race! {Vous avez raisoni Pour
le sure. ) Needer go head ov heemseff I ( Dat's a fac !
Bullay for you ole boy.) Een faceetwas amposseeb to have
a race baytween two horse eef wan ov dem wus drawed hoff
dat race!" and the judgt here shrugged his shoulders and
extended his outstretched palms to the full length of his
short fat arms in forensic attitude over the heads of the
nearest of his audience, the same being loud in its expres-
sions of acceptance or rejection of so self-apparent a plati-
tude. "So on konseekonce of dat," continued Mons.
Badeeshow, "sence Madame Martin have witdra wed Cra-
paud from de race, an geeve hup all she's clam ov de stake,
we have deecide to geeve dees heat an de race to de horse
ov Monsieur Pierro Bertrand, which eet wus now call bah de
nam ov 'Jack Ratbone, ' an so she's feeneesh !"

^^ Hoorah pour Jack Ralhoiie! II a gwjner!^^ shouted a
large majority of the dispersing crowd.

*' Hoorah pour Pierro Bertrand T^ yelled the thirsty, impe-
cunious division.

" Hoorah pour Jack Raihone f^ again and again. Verily,
a new hero had arisen in the land !

Poor, maimed old Crapaud, who had so long held the
blue ribbon of the local ice races for his sportive mistress,
had been deposed, and " dat leetle chesnut plug " was the
hero of the hour.

Le rot est mort / Vive le roi!

Standing at the outskirts of the rapidly thinning crowd,

100

BOIiDEU CANUCKS.

near to where Jack Rathbone, the biped, and Charley Ford
were discussing the question of going home or staying to the
ball at the widow's in the evening, there stood a somewhat
dilapidated looking old habitant, apparently slightly over-
come from gazing upon the wine when it is red. Indeed,
from his appearance he might have been Bacchus himself
in sufficiently characteristic and ante-diluvian habiliments.

He was rotund of form, round of face and rubicund of
complexion. He was dressed in a large, brownish-grey
homespun overcoat with capuschon and red seams, which was
fastened about his obese waist with what i,- known as a rain-
bow sash — one of many striped colors. He wore long-
legged shoepacs, into the legs of which his ample trousers
were stuffed, and on his head, pulled as far down over his
ears as it would go, was a much-worn muskrat skin cap.
His beard was normally grey, but that portion of it imme-
diately below his capacious mouth was bronzed with the
burnished hue produced by the trickling of much " black-
strap " tobacco juice.

He had backed the Widow Martin's Crapaud !

He had lost 1 Aye, Sapnsti, every sou he had in the
world I And now he felt like an impecunious veurien.

He could only abandon himself to grief and vain discom-
forting regrets.

He came to the race in good time in the morning with a
superabundance of confidence in Crapaud's capacity to shut
out Peter Bertrand's colt in the first heat, and the whole of
one dollar away down in his inside pants' pocket.

One half of this capital he had bet on the old horse with
a friend of his, a Windsor butcher ; the other half he had

BORDER CANUCKS.

101

}iut down inside of himself. At least lie had started it in a
downward direction all right enough, but from the way he
felt he strongly suspected that some of it must have circu-
lated around until it found lodgement in his head. He felt
so top heavy, and things — men and sleighs and horses —
seemed so jumbled up and unsteady on their pins.

He could see better with one eye shut, but Afon Dieu !
Hon Dieu I how thirsty he was! If he could only get one
drink of hoisson it would straighten him right up, and then
he could take his conge and go right away home.

Mais un petit fillais avant de partir was absoluement neces-
saire I

Ah ! "Who was that sitting in that fine cutter over there?
Tie would shut one eye and take a good look. Aw, voildl
It was the Windsor butcher, who had won his fifty cents I
The man who had reduced him at once to the ignominious
condition of a disappointed Canadien Francais^ and a thirsty
pauper I Suppose he went over and congratulated the
butcher upon having won his fifty cents. Wonder if he'd
take the hint? Perhaps he might, and if he did he'd ask
him to drink with him, and pay for it with his (Bacchus')
own alienated fifty cents. At all events, there would be no
harm in trying the experiment. ^^ Allons f En avant! Ho!^^

Sat the butcher in a fashionable, well-appointed Portland
cutter, with a wolf skin robe pulled high up, and closely
tucked in about his burly form.

In the shafts before him, quietly stood pretty Butcher
Maid, brown of coat and speedy of gait.

The butcher's good-natured face is suggestive of cherubs
and good things to eat, with an occasional glass of " bittah

' '"wT^i^K

102

BORDER CANUCKS.

beeah " thrown in, while the mare and sleigh bring back
to memory many happy reminiscences of pleasant rural
drives and hair breadth 'scapes in dashes for the lead on
Detroit's Lafayette avenue.

"Hallo Porteur! (hie)" said our thirsty supporter of Cra-
paud, as he balanced up towards the cutter, " Ah guess you
ween dat monnah, ay?"

"What money, boss?" enquired this knight of the block
and cleaver, as he turned his head from a knot of admirers
he had been talking to and gazed upon Bacchus. ^

" Why dat monnah you wus bet (hie) wit me I"

" Let me see, " ruminated Sir Knight, " how much was it
Boss?"

"(Hic)Feeftay cen!(hic.)"

"Oh, sugar! fifty cents, ay, boss?"

" Yas (hic), an b;ih gosh ! (hie) dat's buss me !"»

" Bust you, ay ? Well, that's too bad; but you're not going
to kick about it, are you boss?"

" Keek about eet (hic), " indignantly exclaimed Bacchus
as he steadied himself by grasping the side of the cutter.

"What you took me (hic) for? No sirree Monsieur I
(hic.)"

" You're no quitter are you ?" queried Sir Knight ser-
iously.

"No sair, ah'm no queeteur! (hic) Ah nevaire fleesh
undair(hic) de flag Breeteesh, lac ole Charllo Deedeen wus
use ter say. "

"That's right, " approvingly exclaimed the owner of
Butcher Maid, " I always thought you were a stayer boss !"

BOUDElt CANUCKS.

103

" Aw, yas, hcvery tam ! (hie) you's bet, mats Porteur,
(hie) All goan toll you wan ting (liic). "

"What's that, Boss?"

" Well, bah gosh, (hie) Ah was mighty dry, dat's a fac I
(Uic) " whispered Bacchus confidentially.

" Dry are you ?'*

" Yas, jews lac powder horn. "

" Well, get right in here Boss, " said Sir Knight as he let
the robe down and moved to make room for the " powder
born " on the seat alongside him, " we'll drive over to the
widow's and I'll buy u drink. ''

"What! you wus goan treet me?" queried Bacchus, his
face lighting up with a momentary flash of pleasurable an-
ticipation, mingled with satisfaction at the rapidly successful
result of his little scheme.

" Why of course, " replied the jolly knight, " what do
you take me for ? I'm no hog I"

"Oh, no. Monsieur Porteur I you wus no hog (hie) fur
sure, '* exclaimed Bacchus as he scrambled in beside the
other, "but you wuss fuss class butcher dough. Iloorah!
Hoorah pour nous autresT and as Butcher Maid rapidly
headed towards the widow's hostelry, he scratched off hia
seedy old muskrat cap, and waving it aloft at the dispersing
crowd again gave vent to his superabundant satisfaction in
repeated cheers for " nous autres^ " and the assurance, " Ah
nevaire fleesh undeur de flag Breeteesh. Am no queeteur!
(hie) Dat's de kin ov a mans Ah am, bah gosh I (hie) Ain't
eet Monsieur Porteur ? Yep 1 Yep 1"

Thus the beautifully bright and dazzling day was draw-
ing to its early close.

104

BORDER CANUCKS.

<1! '

So much time had been consumed in tlio appointment of
mutually acceptable judges, and the satisfactory settlement
of other preliminaries before tlie horses started in the match
( between the heats of which several impromptu scrub races
had been allowed to take place ), tliat by tlie time the Fal-
staffian Judge Badeeshow delivered himself of his final
mandate, the blazing sun was rapidly nearing his southern
resting place beneath the glowing red horizon.

And now, the shadows having attained their maximum
length, the shades of evening were fast stealing on, and as
the southwest wind freshened and wafted a colder tempera-
ture from ofif the bosom of the vast frozen lake, Old Sol bid
his last adieu to the memorable day, which marked the
defeat of the Widow Mr.rtin's famous pacing pony, Crapaud,
by Peter Bertrand's chestnut colt on the ice on Lake St.
Clair.

■i

CHAPTER VI.

The Widows Ball

T"ACK RATHBONE had been persuaded into remain-
^-^ ing over for the widow's ball, much against his own
better judgement, knowing as he did that the mythical
Jessie, who had so excited the curiosity of the girls on the
quarter stretch, would impatiently await him at the paternal
mansion, armed cap-a-pie, if he did not show up there, figur-
atively speaking, ere curfew sounded lights out that night.

But the persuasive eloquence of Charley Ford and the
blandishments of his acquaintances among the young ladies,
to say nothing of his sympathy for the sportive widow in
her bereavement and concern for poor old Crapaud, in his
lamentable plight, were far too potent influences to success-
fully resist in his present frame of mind.

The christening and subsequent victory of his equine
namesake had given him that sort of feeling of intense
elation, which inspires to deeds of gallantry and disregard
of consequencea

Charley Ford, in his pleadings that they should stop over
for the dance, had said that Blanche Bertrand, Peter's vivac- .
iously pretty daughter, had assured him that if he didn't,
remain over to it she would get her father to withdraw from
the pony Jack Rathbone's name, and call him after some
more obliging personage.

(105)

|.?

•'■U'

Wi'

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BORDER CANUCKS.

To this Jack answered, "Oh, shawl I'll bet Peter
wouldn't do that Wliy, I have, ah — ay — " and he was just
going to mention his promise of the horse blanket, but he
checked himself in time, as the thought flashed upon him
that it had best be left unsaid, else his very much magnified
honor might be belittled into a very empty afTair, indeed.

Boy like, he felt embarrassed, and he was conscious of
the blood tingling in his cheeks and ears, as evincing his
discomfiture ; while tlie gathering suspicion that he was a
very near approach to a fraud, began to assert itself upon
his inner ideality.

But this, of course, was purely due to the fact of his still
being a comparatively unsophisticated boy, unacquainted
with this fleeting show's methods of the why and the where-
fore of the bestowal of honors.

If he lived to some day become a politician and had a
" doubtful " constituency in congress or parliament offered
him, he would have to get bravely over any maudlin senti-
mentality or pricks of conscience in respect of the purchase
of earthly honors before he could judiciously accept the
proffer.

Peradventure he might some day get to understand that
his promise of the horse blanket, provided Peter named the
little chestnut after him, was a transaction strongly typical
of well-nigh every phase of relationship in life, and that the
fundamental plank in the platform of modern social ethics
is that you shall scratch my back if I scratch yours I

Albeit Master Jack Rathbone had not as yet become
acquainted with the process of Time's tempering crucible as
afforded by daily contact with men and things in the real

UOIIDLH CANUCKS.

107

buttle of life, he vvns,none theless, from the fountain of liis bet-
ter ''organism undefiled," moved to feel somewhat conseienco
stricken wlien it first flashed upon him that the faneied
lienor recently conferred upon him by the guileless Peter
Bertrand was simply a purchased bit of empty immater-
ialism.

Still he withheld any reference to the horse blanket and
wound up his unfinished reply to Charley Ford's cha£f in
respect of Blanche Bertrand's threat as to the change of
the J riy's name by saying, "Oh never mind, I'll tell you
about it some other time. "

"But you've made up your mind to stop for tbe ball,
haven't you old chap ?" persuasively queried the festive Mr.
Ford.

"Oh, yes, I'll stop, but I know that my doing so means
the devil to pay when I get home. You know how down
the governor has been on me of late, and I know that when
he finds out that I have been here at all to-day he'll want to
annihilate me. "

" Well he's sure to find that out, " remonstrated the other,
"and you might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb. I
know that my mother will be as mad as a meat ax when
she realizes that I am not to be home to-night to go to
church with her in the morning, as I invariably do every
Sunday, as you know when I'm in the city but I should
have been prepared to risk a good deal rather than miss
this ball to-night. I'm sure we're going to have a great time
and lots of fun. "

" Well I dare say youm enjoy yourself, " replied Jack
dismally, " because you go in strong for girls' society, but

108

BORDEK CANUCKS.

I'm blowed if it isn't a bore half the time to me to be
among the petticoats. The only girl I care about meeting
and talking to in the city is that fat, ungainly specimen of
incipient womanhood, Emily Eitter. "

"Emily Ritter!" exclaimed Charley deprecatingly, "you
might well describe her as an ungainly specimen of woman-
hood ! She's my abomination, and whenever I see that
lovely little sister Grace of yours and she together, the
story of the beauty and the beast always suggests itself. "

"Yes, I quite agree with you that there's a great contrast
between the two, but then Emily's got more wit and fun in
her little finger than any other girl I ever met possessed in
her whole composition."

"She's got a long tongue, if that's what you mean!"
snapped Mr. Ford, with keen recollections of Miss Ritter's
capacity for caustic chaff.

" Yes, and it's as witty as it is long," smilingly observed
Jack.

"Well, you're welcome to her, tongue and all," laugh-
ingly remarked Charley, as he hurried away to join the
bevy of girls in the large box-sleigh, who were anxiously
awaiting his report of the result of his conference with Jack
in reference to their remaining for the ball.

This conversation had taken place at the track on the ice
just after the race was over, and now evening had come,
and for Jack Rathbone the active ephemeral enjoyment of
this expedition was over ; but he would stop at all hazards
and endeavor to make himself agreeable and enter into the
spirit of the ball.

Yet the all-pervading feeling he had within him that he

BORDER CANUCKS.

109

was doing that which he should not do, by not goiug home
at once, would continually struggle for supremacy with his
desire to enjoy himself.

And it was in this negative frame of mind, begotten of
these conflicting feelings, that he sat down to a sumptuous
supper of fresh fish and new-laid eggs, and an endless
variety of pies, cakes, jams and confitures^ which well-nigh
hid the immaculate table cloth from view

The dining room was to be the ball room of the evening,
and after the repast the chairs and dining table were
removed, and a large, empty, squart deal box, brought in
from outside, placed in the ni^rtheast, corr-jr of the room,
and a solitary chair put thereon for the band.

The band was a pock-marked, ruddy-faced little French-
man, with onion-like looking eyes that never blinked but
siared, not unkindly, at anything and everything they fas-
tened themselves upon with imperturbable absorption.

He was evidently a man of great good-nature, and
inclined to take life pleasantly, as the mischievous smile
which played about the capacious orifice, which served the
purposes of a mouth in the feeding of a corpulent stomach
au 1 abdomen, would seem to indicate.

He was a rural fiddler by profession, and an imbiber of
strong fluids whenever opportunity offered. He had had a
successful day in the latter capacity to-day, and he was now
disposed to be jocund, not to say hilarious.

On first entering the ball room from the bar, after a
modest little " Hoop, la ! Yep, Yep I " he proceeded to
shullle his shoepacked feet in a sort of pas seul, until his

110

BORDER CANUCKS.

breathings suggested the exhaust outside of an over-charged

steam engine.

This, however, was soon put a stop to by the widow, who
swooped down upon him and marched him oft" to.the ros-
trum in the northeast corner, from whence he was told not
^o move, but to tune up and make ready for the first
quadrille.

•' Bah gosh 1 Meesses, " he gasped in remonstrance, " Ali
nevaire see nobody lac you beefor! You wus all datam stop
it a feller from anjy heemseff. "

" Taissez vousV* exclaimed the .widow per Jtorily, as
she stamped her foot upon the floor, and then to Jack
Rathbone, who had just now approached her, she said with
an affectation of temper and scorn, as she pointed her
finger at the gasping orchestra, " Monsieur Ratbone dat ees
de moss trooblesome, ole wortless ting datscome about mah
house !"

" What !" exclaimed the band as with difficulty he rose
from the chair on the box upon which he had that instant
sat down, •' What ! you calls me wortless ole ting does you
Meeses? Well bah gosh ! den you kin git someboday helse
to play for dees dance I" and as he proceeded to descend
from the rostrum he added, "eef Ah wus wortless ole ting,
mah moosique muss be wortless too, bah gosh 1" As he
was about to deposit his fiddle and bow in their pine deal
box Jack Rathbone took him in hand and by dint of much
persuasion and the gift of a silver dollar induced him to
remain and tune up.

This operation of tuning up by a rural fiddler is by no
means a matter of small importance to be hurried over per-

'if- 'Ay.:- ■ /S!

BORDER CANUCKS.

Ill

functorily. Its duration much depends upon the temper of
the fiddler and the tenacity of the cat-gut involved.

If the former is out of temper the latter will fail of the
requisite tenacity for the occasion and the absorption of
much time is the inevitable result.

In this instance the fiddler was rufiled, and the cat-gut
manifestly in sympathy with his perturbed mental and
moral condition.

As he assayed to see-saw each string up or down to cord
with tooth-edged, soul-disturbirg discord he audibly mut-
tered to himself, " call me wortless ole ting eh ? Ah goan
show heur eef Ah wus wortless ole ting ou no I Ah wus
glad she wus beat to-day I Serve heur raght, bah gosh ! Calls
me wortless ole ting eh? Waugh!" and away would go a
string with a startling snap as if in resounding harmony
with these vengeful mutterings.

Then after grunting and perspiring the patched cat-gut
back into place again, he would slowly and deliberately,
and with oscillating under jaw screw it up again, and resume
his direful mutterings in respect of the widow, until another
snap of the string and a vehement point of exclamation was
reached — and so on, da capo.

Meanwhile the guests of the evening were rapidly
arriving — among them Peter Bertrand, who had come to
chaperone his pretty daughter Blanche, . nd as he con-
fidentially communicated to Jack, "shook mah foot lac Ah
use to do when Ah wus young mans. "

" Well, but you're not old Peter, " remonstrated Jack,
"you don't look more than forty. "

" Fortay ! Aw, Bon Dieu I Ah hav moss tweutay year

112

BORDER CANUCKS.

,;l

more as dat I Jews bout de sam age as de Widday Martin
hav."

"Well, the widow doesn't look more than forty -five."

"Aw, yas, she doan look much oler dan dat Mais she's
hav bout feeftay-faf ou feeftay-seex year hole.'*

"I'll bet she doesn't feel more than forty," remarked
Jack.

" No, sair ; sometam Ah guess she doan feel more dan
sexteen," said Peter with a chuckle; "but she say she have
geeve hup dancin. You see eef she have geeve hup dancin
ou no beef or dees ball ees ovaire," and Monsieur Bertrand
winked portentously at his youthful auditor. "Eef she
doan dance wit me, Ah goan toll heur dat she was mad
acpse Ah have beat heur to-day ; an you see eef she not
goan dance wit me den. Ah toll you de widday wus spun-
kay," and he moved his head slowly back and forth in
admiring commendation of the widow's pluck.

"Did you get home with the pony all right?" enquired
Jack.

" What, wit Jack Katbone? " Bah gosh, Monsieur Jack,
yo nam mac fuss class nam for a horse, aint eet ? "

"Well, I don't know," replied the youth smiling; "but
at all events I hope it won't prove an unlucky one for
either yourself or the little horse. "

"Oh, you need not fear of dat; de nam wus all raght.
Every boday on de veellage know dat wus hees nam now, too.
You see we have go home wit flyin coleur, and everyboday
wus cry, * Hoorah poii7' Jack Ratbone ! ' Some ov our byes,
you know, have fetch wit dem a lot of dem small, square
flag dey use on celebration days, and dey have stuck wan

BORDER CANUCKS.

113

ov dem on bote side ov de bridle ov de ponay and four
more on de harness on hees back, an de driver have fassen
wan beeg new broom to de dash board, and den we wus to
drav trough de veellage at a pootay livelay gait, foUored bah
long percession ov all kin ov reeg— cutteur, cariole, new
fashon, ole fashon, evray kine of sleigh wus dare ! Ah toll
you, de people wus excite I You orter see dem run hout ov
dar house and cheer as we pass by. De womans wave
dare hankfeesh, an de chillen hoorah loud's dey can't."

"You see," confidentially added Peter as he lowered his
voice to a whisper, "some ov de fokes roun here doan tink
much ov de widday. Dey ses she wus too much lac a
mans, an eet wus not raglit dat she keeps a fass horse."

" Oh, shaw ! " exclaimed Jack, earnestly, " I don't see
anything wrong in her keeping a fast horse if it suits her to
do so." .

"Needer me!" cried Peter, vehemently; "Ah honlay
was toll you what some udder fokes ses."

"Yes, I know," replied his young city friend ; "but I'd
tell all such people to go to the devil and mind their own
business!"

" Aw, dare ees de widday now ! " interrupted Peter, as
his eye fell upon the hostess just as she entered the door
from the kitchen. "You see Ah goan mak heur open de
ball wit me," and, accompanied by Jack, who was curious
to see the result of this gallant determination, he made his
way to the widow. ■*

Jack was the first to speak. He said: "Mrs. Martin,
Peter has just been telling me that if you don't honor him
8

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114

BORDER CANUCKS.

by opening the ball witli liim, he'll think it's because you
are mad because he beat you on the ice to-day.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the relict of the late Ebenezer
the Second, " Pierro kin go to grass. Ah aint dat kine ov
a womans, an mah dancin day wus ovaire long ago. Mad
wit heern, par example! Quel ahsurdite! " and she laughed
again more heartily than before.

"Well," interposed the owner of " dat leeile chesnut
plug, " "you need not to laugh lac dat Meessesl Mafoieei
you doan dance de fust dance wit me Aligoan tink you wus
mad wit me !"

" Aw, vatan done, " exclaimed the widow, assuming the
scornful ^^ EsttufouV

*' Aw yas, praps Ah wus fool, " replied Peter, ^'•maU Ah
knows what kin of a womans you was I"

"Yas, well, what kin of a womans you tink Ah wus
den ?"

" Ah tink you wusbeetaire an foole of vengeance agin folks
when dey doan let you ride over dem 1" and Mr. Bertrand
with solemn countenance winked an aside wink at Jack as
if he would say, "you'll see if that don't fetch her to
trumps 1"

"J.A Pierro won Aomme .^" and the widow's straightened,
olive-hued features blended into a melancholy smile, " Ah
have always taught you wus wan ov mah good fren 1 Ah
deed not tink you would say dat bout me ! De honlay ting
Ah reegret an wus sorry fur today wus de anjuray mah
pore ole Crapaud have meet wit, an j'^ou hurts me when you
ses Ah wus foole of vengeance !"

" Oh, Ah doan want hurt you I" apologetically exclaimed

BORDER CANUCKS.

115

Peter, " nutting lac dat for sure I Ah onlay wants to dance
wit you!"

" Yes, " interposed Jack, " and you had better dance with
him Mrs. Martin! Open tlie ball with Mr. Bertrand, and
you'll find that everything will go off pleasantly for the rest
of the evening.

" Eut, " remonstrated the widow, " Ah doan know dem
new dance. "

^^ Mais you knows how to dance a two-ban reel, " cried
Peter, "acose Ah remembaire you wus de bess dancer een
dees part ov de conetray tirty 3'ear ago !"

" Ah yas, tirty year ago ! mats Ah wus too ole fur dat
now!"

"Too ole!" indignantly exclaimed Mr. Bertrand with an
intonation of trembling scorn, "Too ole! Why, bah George!
Ah weel bet ten doll air to fav cent dat you wus younger
dan half de gell een dees room now !"

This was too much for Crapaud's plucky and sportive
owner.

"Well Ah goan try a two-han reel wit you den, " she
said, as with a playful smile lighting up her comely coun-
tenance she took Mr. Bertrand's arm to go over and instruct
Monsieur le Proffesseur Moyees Duplessis, which was the
domestic name and professional title in which the band
rejoiced, to attune his instrument for a reel as the initial
dance of the evening. The professor had by this time dis-
solved a considerable modicum of his avoirdupois into a
wreaking perspiration, which streamed from every pore of
his face and hands and dropped off the end of liis nose in
plenteous drops, redolent of whisky and black strap tobacco.

■v.

116

BORDER CANUCKS.

&'i

w. ' ^' ■

This, however, seemed to have the effect of smoothing
his ruffled feathers, and when, after a few final sonorous
scrapings of his f reshly-resined bow across the now accorded
strings, he burst forth into the Arkansas Traveler as a sort
of introductory overture, his face wore an unmistakable
smile of inane beatitude.

The Arkansas Traveler was the modern piece de resistence
of Monsieur Duplessis' repertoire — tlie Arkansas Traveler
in its entirety — both the first as well as the second part, the
execution of which, by the peripatetic "strawnger, " so
delighted Davy Crocket, of historic and dramatic memory.

Modern melody might, perchance, have produced a tune
more calculated to inspire to deeds of terpsichorean prowess ;
but if it had, Mons. le Proffesseur had as yet failed to dis-
cover it and in the execution of the always popular, grotesque
old air, as a rural fiddler proved himself no mean per-
former.

This finished, he held his upright fiddle on his left knee,
and his perpendicular bow on his right, and called out in a
voice of command, "Took yo pardneur fur de fus kad-
dreel."

" No, no, Paul ! " interposed Peter, as he approached the
orchestral throne with the mischievously smiling widow
leaning upon his arm, after she had transformed her black
dress into a costume more picturesquely appropriate for the
occasion by tucking up a la draperie the outer skirt thereof
and displaying a scarlet Balmoral petticoat, and a not
unshapely pair of feet and ankles; '•^Pas un quaddreel sil
vous plait, Paul I Me an de Meesses, and hany wan else dats

BORDER CANUCKS.

117

want to jine een, wus goan dance a two-han reel a la vielleux
fassonl''^

" What you say ? " exclaimed the astonished band ; " you
an de Meesses wus goan dance two-han reel a la vielleux
fasson f "

" Yas, dat's what we goan do," assented Peter, positively.

"^/i hieii honte comme je sius content I -^ and then in a
louder, jubilant voice he called out : " Ladies an gensee-
mans, took yopardneur fur an two-han reel a la vielleux fas-
son, an Ah goan play you someting dat's goan mac yo
shook yo foot, whedder you wants to ou yo doan wants to I
Revielle done mes amisl " with which enjoinder befell to
tuning up again with greasy satisfaction.

The announcement of a reel as the opening dance was an
innovation upon the customary programme on such occa-
sions, and for the moment, somewhat disappointed and
chilled the youthful ardor of the expectant dancers, wlio,
pending the prolonged tuning struggle of the professor with
his refractory fiddle strings, had been promenading the floor
in impatient, albeit joyous couples. But all feeling of
momentary discontent soon made way for a good-naturedly,
eager curiosity, as the brawny Peter and comely widow
faced each other with arms akimbo ready for the ancient
terpsichorean fray.

" Come on, some ov you fokes, an jine een." supplicated
Monsieur Bertrand. But no one responded to this appeal,
and he and his sportive partner were left sole occupants of
the middle of the floor, around which was formed a circle of
gay and festive participants in this one of the widow's more
memorable balls.

• <A

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118

BORDER CANUCKS.

As they stood there, this well-dressed Herculean specimen
of French Canadian manhood, and interesting, low browed,
raven haired, well formed widow, surrounded by a conloyi of
intently happy faces in this low ceiled room, dimly lighted
by the rays of bracket lamps, hung in tlie centre of three of
the four walls thereof, and presided over by the rural fiddler
perched upon his rostrum in the northeast corner, the scene
suggested one of Vandyke's realistic dreams upon canvas
or perhaps better, a scene ivorw one of Moliere's pla3's.

As Monsieur Duplessis with beaming, albeit shiningly
greasy «ountenance, and the measured palpitation of his
right foot in jerky resonance, sawed out the inspiring bars
of an old fashioned reel, the inaugural dance of the Widow
Martin's ball began.

There certainly are things impossible of description, and
the tuneful gyrations of the human form divine in an old
fashioned reel must be one of them. At all events, it is so
with this stubby little pencil in the inexperienced hands of
its latest owner.

It, however, goes without saying, that the opening dance at
this especially auspicious ball at the "Widow Martin's
tavern, on the shores of Lake St. Clair, was a huge success,
and loud were the plaudits of the assembled merry-makers
at the festive widow's power of endurance as she continued
her timely and fantastic steps after her burly partner, from
an affected exhaustion had sunk, laughing and very much
blown, to the floor.

" Ha, ha, " gasped the widow, as she came to a palpitating
stand after a final pirouette of wondrous agility, "you could
beat mah pore ole Crapaud on de hice dees afternoon, but

BORDER CANUCKS.

119

you coo'nt hole a cannel to hees meestress on clees floor
to-night, '' to which Peter, in breathless {\ccents, and shaking
with good-natured laughter as he lay prone upon the floor,
replied, "Ahgeeve up! Ah geeve up! You wus too many
for me Madame — Whew ! Ah'm moss dead !"

*' Bravo I Bravo ! dat wus de bess ting Ah nevaire see fur
long tarn !" shouted the band enthusiastically, as, with one
final, discordant swoop of his bow he tucked his fiddle under
his left arm, and descending from the orchestral throne pro-
ceeded to elbow his way through the hilarious crowd to the
triumphant widow.

He seized her limp, unresisting hand, and shaking it
demonstratively, in tones of admiration exclaimed, " Bravo !
Bravo 1 Madame ! bah gosh, eef you is'nt good wan ! Dat wus
de bess ting Ah've not see for more dan twentay year, an
Ah goan forgeeve you for what you have call me jews
now I"

" Dat's all raght, Moyees !" replied the panting hostess,
"Dat's all raght! Go on de bar and tell Albert to geeve
you a dreenk on mah espense, " which enjoinder the
perennially thirsty band, now entirely restored to good
humor, at once proceeded to carry out.

Meanwhile, Peter had arisen from the floor, and under a
fire of good-natured badinage from the laughing crowd of
gay onlookers, followed Monsieur Duplessis to the tap
room to cool off, and superintend the liquid provisioning of
that worthy's inner man.

This done the professor, under the close surviellance of a
coterie of eager young gallants, was soon made to return and
resume his perch upon the rostrum, and as he took his seat,

'.'', ■'.'.

pr^

liJ

Wis

, •■^i' •

■

;^,

120

BORDER CAM'CKS.

he wiped liis face with a much used red bandanna hand-
kerchief, and in commanding tones called out " Iloorali
boy 1 We weel now beegeen de noo fashon style to dance !
Took yo pardneur for de fuss kaddrcel !"

Like the initiatory reel, this first quadrille, too, was a
grand success. Jack Kathbone, with the pretty Blanche
Bertrand for a partner, danced visa vis toChark'y Ford, and
the gusliing Eosalie — the widow's fair daughter — while the
remainder of this and the other sets on the floor were made
up of gay and good-natured couples of the beaux espriis and
fair daughters of the neighborhood.

Right merrily did the evening grow on apace, and the
abandon and bon- homie engendered by the widow and Peter
Bertrand's old-time opening reel continued to pervade every
incident of the memorable occasion until the midwinter's
night closely trenched upon another Sabbath morn.

CITAPTER VII.

A Turkey Gobbler Parent — An PJmbarrassing Son and Ileir — A Retro-
$pect — An Apology For a Jlero, Etc.

\ LBEIT a prosperous merchant, Mr. Robert Rathbone
-^-^ was a man of many and variously uncertain moods
in respect of his social : nd domestic entity.

Emily, his eldest daughter, recently married to an officer
in the United States army and gone with her husband to
sojourn at one of the far western military posts, understood
him thoroughly. He had been very much averse to her
marrying an American military man at the outset, but this in-
timate understanding of him diplomatically taken advantage
of, had, in the end, changed his opposition into acquiescence.

Shortly before her marriage, Miss Rathbone had said to
her mother, during one of their confidential confabs before
the slowly dying grate fire in the dining room after the
others of the family had retired, one night: "You know,
mamma, I wouldn't be one bit surprised at anyihing papa
might do at any time. Of course, you know, I mean within
a due observance of law and order, and all that sort of
thing. He seems so influenced by the mood he happens to
be in for the time being. And so whimsical I Why,
mamma, he's just like a great, big, overgrown school-boy in
some things, and his temper is so variable and uncertain,
that one never can tell what he's going to do next."

" My dear, my dear," remonstrated the placid little mother,
"you shouldn't talk that way of your father."

(121)

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" "Well, you know, mamma, that what I say is true I "

" That doesn't matter, dear, if it does happen to be true.
In fact, it makes it far worse if what you say is true. It's
not at all nice to hear a grown-up child commenting ill-nat-
uredly upon her parent's weaknesses."

"Oh, mammal you mustn't think that I said what I did
illnaturedly. Oh, no ! not at all. I only mentioned what I
know that you know is a fact."

"Well, my dear, even if it is a fact, that's the very reason
you should say nothing about it, and endeavor to cover it
up. My! Supposing you went to your father and talked
to him of my manifold faults I "

" Your manifold faults ! You stupid little mother, you I "
and the incipient bride arose with a start from the easy
chair in which she had lazily reclined, and going over to the
little woman seated at the opposite Jiide of the fire-place, she
gushingly threw her arms about her neck in a throe of
demonstrative affection.

" Your faults 1 Oh, you poor, dear, little, old, thing, you !
as if you had any faults I " and seated upon the diminutive
mater's lap, she kissed her again and again.

" Yes, my faults," repeated the mother, with a sad smile,

as she tenderly stroked her eldest daughter's soft, brown

' hair. " I hope you'll endeavor to forget them aftei you are

married, and only think of whatever few good qualities I

may possess, when you are far away."

" Oh mamma, mamma, don't talk like that ! you make me
feel so wretched ! The very thought of being far away
from you and this dear old home makes me very unhappy!"
and her pretty blue eyes grew dim with loving, regretful

BOi{DEu ca:-:l'cks.

123

tears as a premonitary symptom to V.'e joint " good cry " this
mother and daughter indulged in on this occasion while
contemplating tlieir early separation.

Yet though Mr. Kathbone, as a husband and father, was
uncertain of temper and even at times whimsical he did
periodically conduct himself in a commendably parental
way and, in fact, so unbent and relaxed his sometimes strin-
gent paternal and marital mandates, as to become for the
time being a reasonably affectionate and indulgent head of a
well regulated domestic household.

Howbeit there ever smouldered within his abnormally
jealous breast the latent germs of a petty tyrant within the
precincts of his own fold, to suppress which and avert a
troublous irruption often required the diplomatic treatment,
and defferentially judicious coddling of his ever patient
wife and appreciative daughcers.

To these two last, he was inclined at times to be if any-
thing overindulgent, and in the long run they usually
carried their point with him, as witness the ultimate mar-
riageol* the fair Ei. lily to her handsome military^awce.

It, however, m;iy be said of Mr. Robert Rathbone that he
wastheso>tof man one but too frequently meets with in
the busines.i places a id counting houses, of large as well as
small comrivircial centres, who take off thp r more obnoxious
incongruities of character, and lay them upon the threshold
of their domiciles on their departure for their offices in the
morning of each working day, and resume them on their
return with the hangiiig up of their uats in the entrxnce hall
in the evening.

To the outside work' he w.'i"; ever the same self-possessed,

lUI lUi^^L*

124

BORDER CANUCKS.

conciliatory business man, dignified and pre-eminently
respectable withal — while within the confines of his own
demestic hearth, he was the jealously tyrannical head of the
family, whom to be unremittingly tabbied and coddled by
the females of the household was as indispensable to his
equanimity as was meat and drink to the proper preser-
vation of his rotund, obese body.

Like many another Englishman, possessor of a patient,
long-suffering wife, he treated her as a sort of incident to his
creature comforts, and especially of the gastronomic depart-
ment thereof.

He had been a very good looking man in his early man-
hood, about the medium height, with a light-haired, straight-
featured, Saxon-like ensemhle, end a pair of fishy-looking,
light blue eyes, rather too much prone to staring absorbedly
at given objects.

Upon his devoted and growing son and heir, Jack, these
searching orbs now seldom rested with anything other than
a fierce expression of questioning suspicion, not to say
dislike.

In fact, if the theory of fore-ordination had been in active
operation when Robert Rathbone made his dehut upon this
terrestrial sphere, it would have been well had it been
arranged that in his capacity of husband and father, he
should confine himself to the propagation of daughters.

To these, as has been said before, he was a fairly indul-
gent and affectionate parent. •

But with his only son, John, his second born, he had
latterly gotten to be the very opposite, and manifestly

PORDER CANUCKS.

125

increasiDgly so, as his heir-apparent approached his man-
hood,

Mr. Rathbone, in respect of his growing antipathy to his
son, might have been likened unto a jealously aggressive
and much inflated turkey cock.

It is said of these imperious birds, who are sharp enough to
distinguish the individual sex of the growing young brood,
that they will systematically, after the manner of Herod, peck
and put to deaih all their male off-spring before they begin
to gobble and strut about with elevated tails, and otherwise
interfere with the old bird's supremacy as head of the
domestic circle In view of this ornithological peculiarity, if
the Chinese theory as to the transmigration of souls be
correct, then the soul of a turkey gobbler must have slipped
aboard at the launching of Robert Rathbone's hull upon its
terrestrial tour, and become its psycological and propelling
motive power.

If a father ai all ( the desirabilty of which was altogether
questionable ) he was designed essentially to be rather
a father ot daughters than of sons.

The daughters, in their gushing defferential way, in more
or less degree pandered to his vanity and aggrandized his
importance as author of their beings But the growing
popularity and importance, in the esteem of his mother and
sisters, of his only son, on the contrary, seemed to threaten a
belittling ot the father's importance in the household, or, at
least, a division of the honors, comforts and other perquisites
ot the position of Tabbie-in-chiet thereof.

It marriage with Robert Rathbone had proven a failure,

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BORDER CANUCKS.

it had been because of his whimsicallj jealous temper and
overbearingly selfish nature.

It would have been better had he never married at all —
better for himself and better for liis wife, whose real or
fancied exploits as a society belle of the city previous to her
marriage, and in fact previous to his having met her at all,
had allowed his vile imaginings to manufacture into a
p' • -. -M of ever lurking jealousy.

W-.t!"" his son Jack was a small boy in knickerbockers
and jacket, he was proud of his good looks and pre-
cocious sayings, and gratified with the sense of proprietary he
felt when he looked at him.

But as the boy grew older and gradually developed into a
tall, fair-haired, good-looking specimen of incipient man
hood, the gnawing phantom of suspicion, which haunted
him in his morbid moods, caused him to discover a marked
likeness twixtthe handsome youth and his wife's one-time
girlhood lover, Gustavus Ford.

This Gustavus Ford, now long since dead, had been a
dashing young gallant, conspicuous at all the better class
social gatherings in the fashionable quarters of the town,
while Robert Rathbone, yet unmindful of aught else save
business progress, plodded on as clerk for the firm he had
engaged with on his first arrival in the city.

Mr. Ford had subsequently given the local Mrs. Grundies
large cause for gossip by unexpectedly eloping with the
only daughter and only child of one of Detroit's richest
citizens at a time when it was very generally supposed he
was shortly going to marry the pretty and popular little
Miss La Tourneau.

LOUUEIl CANUCKS.

127

The flight of the fugitives rendered society aghast for the
time being, but it proved to be only the proverbial nine
days' wonder with the F. F's. of the little city, and, like all
else in this fleeting kaleidoscopic life, was soon forgotten
when the truant couple, forgiven by the bride's parents
returned home to assume their surreptitiously obtained
res}:onsibilities to themselves and to society.

Mr. Ford was a lawyer by profession, and, aided by his now
influential associations as husband of an heiress to a large
fortune, and son-in-law to a distinguished citizen in a large
way of business, his native wit and brilliant talents soon
secured for him a conspicuously commanding position at
the state bar.

But while his professional life grew in prosperity, bis
inner domestic life year by year waxed proportionately
wretched and unenviable.

His perturbed and peripatetic honeymoon was not yet
over ere he discovered that, on the impulse of the hour, he
had allied himself, until death or the divorce court should
separate them, with one whom he never could love or
tenderly sympathize with.

At the outset of his married life, Mr. Ford's struggles for
distinction at the bar were so absorbent of his thinking
power, that his domestic surroundings and appurtenances
received a very small modicum of his attention ; but as the
noveltj- »of professional success gradually wore away, and
the disenchanting circumstances of daily matrimonial con-
tact with one to whom his heart would not and could not
go out, month by month grew more and more trying, he
chafed and fretted under the marital yoke.

[

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BORDEli CriNUC£S.

/'''• I , '^

He took to politics as a means of distracting his mind
from the contemplation of this irrevocable cast of the dye,
and, as at the bar — which, by the way, both in the States
and Canada, constitutes the most prolific nursery for, and
stepping stone to, the political arena — he met with marked
acceptance.

But, though his short and brilliant career as a legislator
was in every way agreeable to his ambition and soothing to
his vanity, and for a time a seemingly effective panacea for
,.ie discords of his domestic situation, his struggles towards
the summit of Parnassus, in the end inevitably proved
^her: ^ves purely tentative and altogether ephemeral in
their consequences.

For, incidentally to his success as a politician, he became a
confirmed drunkard, though a quiet, melancholy and unob-
trusive one. As a drunkard he came to his death, though
the fact was not generally known to the outside world ; and
some ten years before the opening of this history he was
quietly laid to rest in Elmwood cemetery, amidst an halo of
general public regret, and the sincere lamentations of many
friends, leaving behind him a rich widow and two briglit-
eyed little sons, " to mourn his loss, " to use a much-worn
and much-abused phrase.

On his death-bed Mr. Ford had sent a surreptitious mes-
sage, through his devoted!}^ forgiving, albeit too much neg-
lected, wife, to Mrs. Rathbone, beseeching her to come to
his dying bed-side, that he might, in bidding her a last
adieu, make his peace in respect of that which iiad over-
shadowed his conscience as an all-pervading pall for many

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BORDER CANUCKS.

129

an unhappy hour during the heyday of his success at the
bar, and his triumphs in the field of politics.

Mrs. Rathbone, unable to resist this melancholy appeal in
fearful and trembhng anticipation of the trying ordeal had
gone, and an unwitnessed interview had taken place, which
had so effected the tender-hearted wife of Robert Rathbone
that in her subsequent effervescent feelings of grief and
remorse, she had gushingly told her husband for the first
time since their marriage the nature of her one time close
intimacy with the dying man and of how much she hud
loved him in the days gone by.

A foolish, single-hearted, forgiving little woman this ! but,
in view of her more than ten years' experience of her
jealously suspicious husband, how injudicious in this
instance !

Looking at it from the standpoint of a conservator of
Robert Rathbone's peace of mind, this was manifestly a case
wherein the bliss ot ignorance was incomparably better than
the folly of overburdening wisdom.

Unquestionably it would have been better (in that it
would have been the properly honest course to take under
the circumstances) if at the outset of her encouraging
acceptance of the attentions which led u]) to their marriage,
she had told her future husband of the true character of her
intimacy with Gustavus Ford.

But, having omitted the performance of this self-apparent
duty at the proper time, it was little short of cruel to tell the
unfortunate man so many years after the facts were at all
reparable.

I ft *i,»

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I'

She had wanted to tell him at the proper time ; and she
had felt not unlike a guilty thief in not having unbosomed
herself and trusted to his generosity to overlook anything
in her girlhood intimacy with Gustavus Ford, which, from
a strictly decorous point of morality, might have approached
what could be properly called an indiscretion.

The probabilities are that had she possessed the veiy
unusual faculty of at will transfering her affections from her
first lover to her second serious suitor, she would have,
without much difficulty, contrived to tell the latter of the
true nature of her one-time intimacy with the former.

But it will be remembered that it was, from the outset,
understood that the betrothal of Robert Rathbone and Miss
Emily La Tourneau resulted m a very near approach to un
marriage de covenance, in which the feminine heart involved
was but a scarificed, second-hand appendage; and with that
feminine reticence, which is the invariable outcome of dis-
appointed, outraged love, the affianced bride had, in the
light of her experience as tho erstwhile fiancee of Gustavus
Ford, shrunk from the idea of entrusting the man she was
about to marry with the knowledge he was justly entitled
to in the forming of an opinion of her fitness to fill the post
of a loving and loyal wife to him.

The dead man had not absolutely jilted her — that is to
say, he had not, while engaged to her, taken French leave
and clandestinely gone off with the prospectively rich girl
he had made his wife.

Miss La Tourneau and the comparatively briefless young
lawyer had been engaged to be married for well on to four
years, and during that period had seen much of each other

BORDER CANUCKS.

131

iu the close confidences of a betrothal intimacy, which,
however, in keeping with the invariable experiences in
most cases of protracted engagements, had been periodically
visited with the temporarily fatuous storm of a lovers*
quarrel.

For more than a dozen times had they at intervals during
their lengthened engagement mutually rated each other in
criminatory and recriminatory terms, and separated for the
nonce with vehemently bitter words upon their lips — always
however, again to come together in the ecstatic throes of that
sweetest mutual forgiveness of reinvigorated love so aptly
covered by a certain time-honored Lalin proverb bearing
upon the subject.

On the last occasion of these periodical outbreaks, which
had originated with her lover uprading her in jealously
angry terms for having danced too often and otherwise
having rendered herself far too conspicuous with a certain
elegible and popular man about town, a notorious flirt, Miss
La Tourneau had given Mr. Ford his conge apparently as if
she meant that their heretofore understanding, looking to
their marriage so soon as his circumstances might warrant
it, should cease and determine from that hour.

He had assured her, in bitterly resounding philippics, that
he should take her at her word, and he had thus taken his
departure from the La Tourneau domicile for the last time,
untrammelled of his long existing plighted troth, to one,
whom, in his subsequent morbid moods of mind, growing
out of the real and fancied miseries of his ill assorted
fugitive match, he had allowed himself to get to think that
life was not worth living without?

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im^-

n <

Of course, coquettish woman-like, she had acted out her
part, as if she really were in earnest when she unrelentingly
dismissed him with a repellant cold good-bye; but she was
only acting a part, and she confidently looked forward to a
blissful restoration of peace and harmony again before the
week was out.

However, in this anticipation she was somewhat shaken
when on the evening following their angry separation a
messenger brought her a coldly formal letter and a package
from Gus (as she always called Mr. Ford), the latter con-
taining her letters to him, a locket, and certain other little
souvenirs she had from time to time given him throughout
their protracted engagement.

This circumstance was considerably dampening to her
coquettishly assumed indifference in the premises, but did
not altogether rob her of her confidence in the ultimate
resumption of their intimacy.

, She promised herself that, in the course of a week or so,
she would write Gus a letter acknowledging that she was to
blame, and beg his forgiveness ; and she felt, judging from
past experience, that that would inevitably bring him to
her feet again.

She, of course, knew where his office was situate, and she
also knew that shortly after four o'clock on each week day
he was usually to be seen going to the postoffice on Gris-
wold street.

She had often met him between these two points in keep-
ing with a previous understanding when they had arranged
for one of their many charming little afternoon outings on
the river, a stroll in Grand Circus Park, or a visit to one of

BOUDEU CANUCKS.

133

the matinees ; and, for three consecutive, briglit, afternoons,
after arraying her graceful, little person in neatly, becoming
attire, she had made it a point of being seen (piietly walking,
without an escort, along the route he was in the habit of
taking. But all to no purpose 1

Either he had gone out of the city, or she had too griev*
ously ofEended him, and he was purposely keeping out of
her way, in virtuous indignation

She was becoming nervously fretful and subduedly cast
down about it.

Had she met him on the street, she, of course, wouldn't
have gone up to him and asked his forgiveness, and begged
him to forget their quarrel.

Oh, no I She wouldn't have done that !

But she'd have bowed to him dignifiedly and with
empressemeni, and stealthily taken especial note ot the
method and manner of his response, and regulated lier sub-
sequent course accordingly.

The truth was, that Miss Emily La Tourneau was becom-
ing very unhappy, as a victim of that noxious feeling of
remorse — the sure outcome of self-condemnation in all such
instances.

What, then, must have been the bitterness of her sensa-
tions when, before she had contrived, at the sacrifice of her
pride, to indite the letter begging his forgiveness and ask-
ing him to return to her, which she intendc .f> send him,
society was paralyzed by the announcement that Mr. Gus-
tavus Ford, the young attorney, and the wealthy heiress.
Miss Julia Perkins, had together taken flight from the city.

No one had ever known, but lierself, how much she had

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BOKDEU CANUCKS.

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suffered under this death-dealing blow to all her tenderest
and fondest, albeit coquettish, capacity for passionate love
for a man.

The crucible of an agonized mingling of bi.jjiiced love
and soul-racking remorse, through which she hud gone at
this time, had so chastened, subdued and purified her of all
coquettish tendencies, that in due course she grew to be
fitted to become the faithfully loyal and patient wife of the
methodical and exacting Robert R.itlibone. She had not,
as she should have done, told the latter the substance of all
this before their marriage.

Thus their matrimonial barque had been launched upon
life's treacherously uncertain sea, freighted down with all
the burdening influences of an ante-marital secret

But under the influence which that death-bed, ♦^^nessed

interview with her one-time betrothed lover had upon her
conscience and her nervous system, or perhaps in fulfillment
of some last, dying, expressed wish of the dead man, in an
abandon of hysterical grief and self-abnegation she had
told her husband aU that he properly should have learned
from her own lips at the outset of their courtship.

It had happened on the evening of the day on which the
death-bed meeting had occurred, after the children had gone
to bed, leaving their father and mother alone seated on
either side of a large centre table before a crackling, open,
wood fire.

Mrs. Rathbone had introduced the subject of that which
had secretively lain nearest her innermost being, as a pall
upon her conscience, by putting down the fancy work she
had nervously been attempting progress with and going

BOHDEIl CANUCKS.

136

over to wlicro her liusbaiul riat, rending liis ovcnitig paper,
.she tremblingly knelt beside his easy ch.air, and buried her
face upon the palms of her liands as they rested upon its
arm.

"Robert dear, " she had said beseccliingly, without look-
ing up at him, " put aside your paper for a few moments
won't you please?''

"Why Emily, what is the matter?" he asked, rousing up
and not unkindly putting aside the paper in a far better
humor than usual. " I have noticed that you were out of
sorts all the evening. Are you ill wife?" and he took her
limp unresisting little hands in one of his and smoothed her
bowed head unusually sympatheacally, for him, with the
other.

" No, not ill in the sense you mean, Robert, " she had
answered, beginning a burst of tears, "but I have got that
to tell you of my life before we were married which you
ought to have known before we became man and wife. "

" You have ?" exclaimed the husband with rising inflection,
of voice and kindling suspicion. ^

" Yes, dear," she replied with a trembling sob.

"And what is it at this late day you have to tell we?'*
and he emphasized the me with resounding vehemence.
"What is there I should know, that I do not already know,
of your life before our marriage?" he demanded, with
hardening countenance.

"You know that Gustavus Ford died this afternoon, don't
you, Robert ? " she gushed forth amidst a volley of choking
sobs.

"Yes! And, pray, what may Gustavus Ford's dying

a'-JI

136

BORDER CANUCKS.

this afternoon have to do with what happened to you before
we were married ? " he demanded, sternly.

•' OA, Mon Dieu! Mon Dieii/^^ she tearfully exclaimed.
in subdued tones, as if communing and struggling with her-
self ; and then, as if with a great effort, she steadied herself
and answered: "Nothing, Robert, except that I was at
one time engaged to be married to him. "

" Is that all ? " he queried, in a doubtingly questioning
tone of voice.

"Y-e-s."

" Are you quite certain it is? " he almost shouted.

*' Y-e-s, yes, Robert I "

" Well, then, if that is certainly all you have to tell me at
this late day, " he answered, after a short pause, in a less
aggressive tone of voice, " I have only to say that, notwith-
standing that you have heretofore withheld what you your-
self now say I ought to have known before I became your
husband, I have been for some time past aware of the
humiliating fact that you would have been that drunken
reprobate's wife, instead of mine, if he had not thought
proper to jilt you ! "

He jerked this out in spasms of irrepressible bitterness.

"No, Robert, you're mistaken, he did not jilt me, " she
tearfully objected, with a tremulous catching of the breath.

" Then, I suppose, he seduced you ! " he venemously
hissed forth, as he motioned to get up from his chair, which,
however, she succeeded in preventing by throwing herself
upon him and exerting her full strength in a fiercely sup.
plicating manner.

"Oh, Robert! how dreadful that you should think oi

BORDER CANUCKS.

137

say such a thing of your own wife! "she gasped, in her
efforts to keep him seated in the chair.

*' It is true, nevertlieless, is it not? " he demanded, loudly.

•' As Heaven is my witness, here upon my bended knees,
Robert, I swear it is not ! " and with tightly olas})ed,
extended hands, and a large tear slowly coursing down
eacli of her blanched cheeks, she gazed heavenward.

"Well, then, " he exclaimed in a slightly lowered tone of
voice, " why have you made this a mystery for all these
years — practically „living a lie for all this time, as you
certainly have — by not having told me freely and unreserv-
edly of all that had transpired between yourself and that
dead inebriate?"

" Because I was a moral coward," she replied, hyster-
ically, " and afraid that you would spurn and despise me as
your wife. "

" But, pray, what was to prevent your telling me before
you became my wife, I'd like to know ? "

"Because the wounds," she gasped, with a shudder,
between her well-nigh suffocating sobs, "which my own
folly had inflicted upon my wicked heart, were then too
fresh to exhibit to anybody ! "

" Your folly ! your wounds 1 and your wicked heart !
Why, what do you mean ? "

To this she had replied by painfully giving him the
burden of the particulars, already known to the reader, of
the history and rupture of her one-time betrothal to the dead
Gustavus.

" And now, Oh Robert," she had hysterically pleaded, as,
rising from her kneeling posture beside him, she clingingly

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liOr.DEli CANUCKS.

Struggled her arms about his neck, " in God's name, my
husband, I implore your forgiveness for having withheld
this from you for all these years. If you could but realize
how much I have suffered because of the omission, I'm sure
you would forgive me, " and she squeezed his head against
her tear-stained face in a suppliant throe of genuine con-
trition.

It was a remarkable, though not an uncommon thing in
real life, that among several other contradictory peculiarities
of this Robert Rathbone — this sternly exacting, jealous,
domestic tyrant — was a susceptibility to woman's tears, but
whether because of the impatient irritability they made
him feel or of a not at all times discernible generosity, it
would have been difficult to determine.

No matter in how towering a rage he might be, if for some
especially aggravated cause, he had driven his wife to tears
— rare things with her in her acquired evenness of temper
and patient resignation — he had always been measurably
quieted.

He had an abhorrence of a scene involving grief, and any
manifestation of lachrymose sentimentality in man or
woman, put him out of all patience, and caused him to pull
himself inside of his coldly impenetrable dignity with the
disgust of a thwarted snapping turtle.

It was this uninviting shell of dignity, mingled with an
English taciturnity of pride, and a repugnance to admitting
discomfiture in anything which had enabled him to assume
ignorance of his wife's love experience with Gustavus Ford.

He had become aware of the facts in respect of it shortly
after their marriage through a garrulous younger brother of

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139

hers; and after a searching investigation (of course unknown
to his wife), having become convinced that nothing
absolutely criminal had ever taken place between the
erstwhile lovers, he had held his pence.

Ilowbeit from the information so obtained, there had
incontinently germinated a shadowy, all -pervading phantom
which got into the way of mounting guard over his morbidly
jaundiced secret broodings.

Now, however, that he had heard the long withheld story
from his wife's own trembling lips, a transfiguration had
forthwith taken place.

The aforesaid shadowy phantom, instead of vaporizing
into the ethereal blue of unclouded confidence, from that
hour gradually assumed the impalpable proportions of a full
fledged skeleton, destined periodically to stalk abroad with
discordant and disturbing footfall amidst the lares and
penates of the Rathbone domestic household, having its
habitat within the proverbial closet thereof.

The transformation which had thus taken place, it will
therefore be understood, had been inaugurated on that
memorable evening, before the crackling, open wood fire in
the favorite little sitting room of the Rathbone mansion,
when the head of the establishment negatively forgave his
suppliant, tear-stained little wife on the evening of the day
which marked the death of Gustavus Ford.

Mayhap if the now freed spirit of the dead man had con-
tinued in the flesh, the metamorphosis would never have
taken place.

Is there not such a thing as greater jealousy of the dead
than of the living ?

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Is it a rare thing in this wretched round of misery of ours,
called life, that the peace of mind of the living should be
put to flight by the post mortem developments in respect of
a deceased, one-time lover — one's predecessor in the change-
ful affections of the living relict, as for instance?

At all events, it was in this way that the death of his
wife's girlhood lover affected the morbidly jealous mis-
givings of Robert Rathbone.

''"■'r^

I
I

CHAPTER VIII.

The Vagaries of a Domestic Skeleton, and One of the Remits of a

Mixed Marriage,

npHE READER, gentle or otherwise, would seem to be
-^ entitled to an apology for the " ancient history " in
respect of these chronicles perpetrated in the last chapter.

The retrospect, however, seemed indispensable to a proper
undei'standing of the raison d'etre of the Rathbone domestic
skeleton ; and in that there would be but little left herein
to record that that grimly immaterial ogre had not some-
thing, directly or indirectly, to do with the digression, will,
perhaps, be kindly condoned.

Domestic skeletons, both material and immaterial, are
like race horses ; they " go " in ail shapes, and, the proverb
to the contrary notwithstanding, their abode is not neces-
sarily always within the mysterious cubbie-hole or secret
closet of the family habitation.

In this instance the abiding-place of the Rathbone skele-
ton was largely within the jaundiced imagination of
Robert Rathbone ; and although its raison detre was seem-
ingly based upon a wholely insufficient and unwarrantable
foundation, on occasion it was wont to swoop forth and do
yeoman's service as a despoiler of the peace and harmony of
the Rathbone family. At one time during the earlier
period, after its incubation, its favorite object of attack was
the alleged priestly influence the wife was subject to ; and

(141)

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f-.

any marked attention, however conventionally correct,
shown by a gentleman acquaintance to the long-suffering
little woman invariably caused an ominous rattling of
impalpable bones and a discordant clanking of jealous mar-
ital chains within the inner domestic sanctum. These two
erstwhile, ever-fertile causes of the skeleton's depredations
upon the happiness and contentment of the family were, in
due course, largely lived down by reason of the imperturb-
able amiability of the little wife and mother, coupled with
her diplomatic management of her exacting lord and master.

Eobert Rathbone, voluptuary that he had gotten to be of
late years, had gradually grown to regard his wife as a sort
of female butler and caterer to his household, and coddler-
general to his increasingly obese person.

Upon his wife's staff in the latter capacity his two
daughters had of late proven themselves effective aids, but
not so his unfortunate son and heir, Jack.

Around and about this adventurous youth there now
hovered— ever upon mischief bent — all the portentous
promptings of a green-eyed, abnormal imagination.

Many a Machiavelian stroke of policy and finesse had
Mrs. Rathbone and the girls perpetrated in the interests of
their beloved Jack within these last two years.

Often had his banishment from the household been
threatened in the privacy of the parental bedroom; but,
thanks to the diplomatic methods of the mother and sisters,
up to this time nothing had been openly enunciated in
respect of what disposition there was to be made of him.

Things certainly could not continue as they had done
for the year last past.

BORDER CAXUCKS.

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Within the last eighteen months the comparatively
small boy had merged into a well-developed youth now
upon the verge of manhood; and his father's apparent
indifference of him at the outset of that period, had now
grown into a feeling closely trenching upon an active and
progressive dislike.

He had never been a bad boy, though from a strictly
ethical point of view, he had perhaps not been an especially
good one. He had unquestionably been what is commonly
known as a generously good-natured, wild boy; but his
wildness chiefly consisted in the practice of those sports and
pastimes his father had actively encouraged him in a fond-
ness for when he was an urchin.

He was much given to shooting and fishing, and in the
prosecution of these sports had occasionally overstepped
the limits of parental discipline, but not to any heinous
extent.

He was passionately fond of horses, and as has been
shown, an enthusiastic votary of any kind of horse racing,
but in this he was only following the example of his father,
who himself was a warm supporter of the turf and a mem-
ber of the local trotting association.

He had a prediliction for game fowls, which his father
too had at one time encouraged him in the breeding of.

With something of credit to his discernment as a judge of
of the points of a cock, he had gone through the " rooster
swapping" period of early boyhood with not a little ec^ai
among his contemporary small boys who had cocks to
barter and exchange. Later on he had been generally

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recognized by local cock fanciers, as an appreciative
connoisseur of what constituted a good bird.

This reputation had led him into frequent temptations to
surreptitiously attend the occasional cocking mains held in
the neighborhood, and it must be reluctantly confessed
that he had two or three times been inveigled into giving
away to the same, but always with a negative sort of grati-
fication. Each time he had gone to witness a battle he had
felt like an outlaw (as in truth he was) while the so-called
sport was in progress, and a guilty culprit after the excite-
ment was over.

It is therefore safe to say that he will have outgrown any
taste for cock-fighting as a sport or pastime with the coming
of maturer years.

But it will thus be seen that Master Jack Rathbone had
never at any time been one of the goody-good order of
youths. Yet his father in view of the part he had taken
in fixing the tastes and inclinations of his one-time little
boy, was scarcely justified in treating his well-nigh full
grown son with the impatience and harshness he had several
times of late exhibited towards him.

The truth was that the sepulchral ogre fostered and
cherished within the fetid confines of the father's abnormal
and unnaturally jealous inner consciousness, having tired of
its one-time frequently recurring attacks upon the patient
mother, had within the last two years settled upon her
idolized son.

Thus it was that Jack's premonition of trouble for having
allowed himself to be cajoled into remaining over at Belle

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145

River for the Widow Martin's ball stood a very fair chance
of realization.

Oil that evening Mr. Robert Rathbone returned from his
counting house to his luxuriously comfortable home in an
especially disordered frame of mind.

Things had not gone rightly with his business during the
day.

The mercantile house of Rathbone & Ritter had, that
morning, received intelligence of the fraudulent failure and
flight to Canada of one of their wholesale department's
heaviest country customers, entailing an inevitable loss to
the firm of some three or four thousand dollars — a meie
bagatelle, it is true, but aggravating withal because of cer-
tain exceptionally annoying circumstances attending the
transaction involved.

The commercial traveller for the house, who had sold the
last bill of goods to the fugitive delinquent, happened to be
in the city, and the senior partner had sent for him, taken
him into his private office, and, after locking the door, with
a sternly determined mien proceeded to give him a going
over in good set terms. This, however, the characteristic-
ally cheeky and independent, albeit blameless, drummer
neither did not deserve nor would not take.

Reference to the letter book went to show that the order,
which now could be debited to Profit and Loss, had been
filled in pursuance of Mr. Rathbone's own personal instruc-
tions, and that his peripatetic agent had only acted under
the firm's peremptory instructions, and much against his
own individual judgment in having filled the order at all.

The drummer, at down-town lunch that day, had said to

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another knight of the road : " I tell you, the old man was
hot this morning about that Simpkins failure, and proposed
coming down on me with both feet. But I wouldn't have
it ! It didn't take me long to prove to his mightiness that
he, individually, alone was to blame in the matter, and that
if I had been allowed to have my way in the premises, there
wouldn't have been any loss at all, however small. Of
course, the loss in the case doesn't amount to anything to a
house like ours ; but old Ratty was just wild when he found
that he, and nobody else, was to blame. Admit it? Well I
should smile I He had to ; but he kicked' like a Texan
mule all the time, you bet r

Mr. Rathbone had carried this Texan-mule humor back
to his mansion in the evening, and didn't take it off with
his hat and overcoat and his outside-world suavity and
hang it up on the hat rack in his spacious entrance hall, to
be donned again on his departure for down town in the
morning.

He kept it right by, with and in him all the time, and
mixed it up and blended it in with his aforementioned tur-
key-cock disposition as to his absent son and heir.

"Where is John? " he peremptorily demanded of Grace,
his youngest, gum-chewing daughter, as after kissing him
on his arrival, with askant countenance, she gazed up into
his face searchingly, while he removed his hat and overcoat
and hung them upon the hat rack in the hall to the left of
the entrance.

Something in his demeanor and the tone of his voice
denoted more than usual disaster to Jack, her beloved ally,
whom she cared for with that sort of blindly enthusiastic

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BOUDEU CANUCKS.

devotion known alone to short -dressed school girls of fifteen
summers for their big brothers.

Immediately her incipient woman's instinct was put upon
the alert, and all that she knew of policy, f,)iesse, diplomacy
or any other sort of art she had the slightest knowledge of,
was at once made available in shielding her precious bipedal
paragon.

Lie? Why, of course she'd lie for Jack's sake! What
wouldn't she do for dear old Jack, who was always so good
to her — so considerate of her in a patronizing, manly,
undemonstrative sort of way ?

If Jack's welfare or happiness seemed to require that she
should make her way through an army of blue-coated
guardians of the peace to the inevitable city hall tower, and
there upon its apex stand upon her head, she would have
undertaken to do so with the utmost sa7ig froid.

A pretty little thing was this gum-chewing petite sylph
with her bright, long lashed, dark blue eyes, and burnished
brown hair.

Even that abomination in female attire known as a
Mother Hubbard of some light blue material, trimmed with
white, failed to disguise the gracefulness of her well-
developed little figure, with its shapely little foot and
ankle.

She was an immense favorite with the entire household
and understood her father like a book. So practiced was
she in the arts of finesse ond diplomacy in her general
bearing towards him and withal so affectionate, that she had
frequently been called upon to mtervene in behalf of some

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k :ll

delinquent member of the household that oil might be cast
upon an existing domestic sea of troubles.

She knew exactly where Jack had gone. In fact, by
feigning inability or unwillingness to walk to the convent
for her music lesson that morning, she had enabled him, as
per previously arranged programme, to take his pony and
sleigh away from the premises without being questioned as
to where he was going before he came back.

She liked Charley Ford. Yes, she liked Charley Ford —
at first because he was a friend of Jack's ; and anybod}'
Jack liked she also must like, as a matter of course.

If Charley Ford had not been a friend of Jack's the prob-
abilities were that she would never have known him at all,
and then, of course, she never could have had any feelings
towards him of any kind whatsoever — good, bad or indif-
ferent.

Jack was always so good and so noble, and Charley Ford
was so worthy a friend for him to have.

And, oh, how handsome he was this morning in his fur-
trimmed, well-fitting coat and becoming cap as he stood
upon the curb near to the convent gate waitmg for she a) id
Jack to drive up and find him there as previously arranged !
How courteously and pleasantly he had handed lier out of
the sleigh, and, after a few words of 'leV itful <jiiat, 1 'uv
deferentially ho had shaken her ' o hand a"d said
good-bye.

She was so glad that he and Jack h;. ' go* o to the race at
Belle River together, and she so hoped tuat they might
have "a real good time."

She felt that their joint interests had been left under her

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149

especial care dnring their absence, and tlicy might depend
upon her protection and defense of tliem to the utmost of
her ability.

So that when her father asked " Where is Jolm ? " with a
little tremor of nervousness at the sternness of the demand,
she answered : " I d(jn't know for a certainty where ho went
to, papa; but I believe when he went out he intended driv-
ing up to see how Mr. llamilton is — poor old man ! One
of the day scholars at the convent, who lives up near where
tilt* Hamiltons do, told me that he was very low, indeed."
and a benign hjok of scrai)hieally sympathetic melancholy
over-spread the innocent, young fiuie.

Mr. Hamilton, an old Edinborough University man, had
occupied the position of private tutor to Jack and two other
gentlemen's young sons until a fortnight previous, since
which he had been confined to his house, two miles up tlie
river road, with a severe attack of bronchitis, and had been
obliged to forego his teaching.

This circumstance had furnished Grace, our mendacious
young sylph, with what, it had suddenly flashed upon her,
might prove a plausible and commendable means of
accounting for her brother's absence from the house at the
dinner hour.

"Stuff and nonsense," exclaimed Mr. Rathbone, scoffingly ;
"he is much more likely to be consorting with some of his
congenially low, cock-fighting companions somewhere about
the slums of the city."

"Oh, no, papa," remonstrated the romantic Grace, "I
really do think he has gone up to the Hamiltons ; and," she

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liilk.,..

hesitatingly added, "I think that Charley Ford has gone
with him."

" That young Ford gone with him, ay ? Boon compan-
ions, both I What one doesn't know about scampishness,
the other will teach him — arcades ambof "

"Oh, papa, you shouldn't say that Charley Ford is a
scampi" and having let this remonstrance ■ xape her
unwittingly, her face became very much flushed as she
nervously clasped her father's coat sleeve above the elbow
and accompanied him into the dining room. " Every-
body," she tremulously added, as they passed the thresh-
old, " says that he's a very good young man."

" Good young man, ay? " cried her father. *' So was Jesse
James a good young man 1 "

"Oh, papa, I think it's real mean of you to compare
Jack's friends with thieves," and the color left her bright
young face for the instant, as if she had been suddenly
startled through fright.

As father and daughter entered the brightly lighted, cozy
dining room, with its ready laid dinner table and crackling
grate fire, Mrs. Kathbone emerged through the rear door
from the kitchen, whither she had been to personally sup-
erintend preparations for the dishing of the dinner.

This meal of late years had gotten to be a matter of very
large importance to the daily peace and harmony of the
Rathbone household.

At the outset of their married life Mr. and Mrs. Rathbone
had begun housekeeping in a modest little home situated
conveniently to the store, and there each day's comparatively
frugal dinner was partaken of with dispatch and sans cere-

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151

monie at one o'clock sharp on working days, and perhaps
an hour or so later on Sundays and holidays. They had
lived but six or seven years in this simple, unostentatious
way, when the firm of Rathbone & Ritter bad sufficiently
prospered to enable the senior member thereof to wi .'idraw
five thousand dollars from the concern and invest it in ten
acres of one of the narrow French farms upon which Detroit
is built.

This was thought to be an enormous price to pay for so
small an area of land at the time, but this methodical
Englishman, with that business foresight which so distin-
guished him, knew what he was about when he made the
purchase, as the sequel proved.

He simply laid the foundation of an unusually liberal
fortune by this one investment.

He saw that the old, original French settlers and their
descendants, who owned a large proportion of the narrow
farms upon which the beautiful city was to grow, with that
conservative disposition to preserve everything as it is
which so characterizes them as a race, were going to cling
to their holdings for at least a generation to come, despite
the specious blandishments of the speculative land agent

This would have the inevitable effect of circumscribing
the limits of available land for actual building or si)ecula-
tive purposes, and thus, by limiting the supply, increase the
demand and, of course, the price, as a natural sequence.

This feature in the history of Detroit's building up is not
alone peculiar to that city.

St, Louis, Missouri, notably, has undergone a very sim-
ilar experience, arising from exactly similar causes.

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J Ji1

Each of these large, mctroj)olitan centres were founded
and originally settled by the stuidy pioneers of La Nonvelk
France, and it is probable that much of the solidity and pci-
manent character of their present wealth and magnificence
is not a little due to the go-ahcad-slowly spirit engendered
by the quaint conservatism of their old-time French habitant
settlers.

However this may be, Mr. Rnthbone's speculation turned
out an immense success and, apart from any other of his
resources, made him prospectively a rich man.

He divided the property into building lots, and reserved
for his own occupation an entire square, surrounded on all
sides by broad, well laid out streets.

In the centre of this, fronting upon what is now one of
the chief wealthy residence streets of the city, he erected a
si)acious, square, brick house, with suitably commodious out-
buildings, and proceeded to plant ornamental trees and lay
out a lawn and garden, now become one of the sights of
the city. The house itself, at the time of its erection, was
thought to be a magnificent structure; but, by comparison
with the imposing modern mansions now so common in this
city of suj^fM'bl}' commodious residences, as it nestles in the
centre of its s]\ncious grounds beneath the shadow of tall
trees and its garnishment of well trained shrubbery, presents
the appearance of a well preserved old English manor house
as nearly as may be.

Its plan inside is unpretentious, and its decorations and
furniture designed moie for comfort and long service than
for fleeting ornamental show.

As one enters the lofty main entrance hall from a pillared

\^K,.l

BOIIDEU CANUCKS.

l-o

vestibule at the front, if lie be a social caller, he is ushered
into the large drawing room to the left, running the full
length of the building — furnished, upholstered and decor-
ated after the luxuriant manner of households of American
gentlemen of fortune. While visitors who call to see any
member of the family, informally or upon business, on the
other hand, are shown to the right, past the foot of the
broad staircase leading to the ui)per story, into an ante-
room of moderate dimensions, which is also largely used as
a living room and general place of rendezvous for the family.

In this cozy little room before a cheerful, open, wood fire-
place, with brass andirons and other glittering appoint-
ments, the family, when they are alone, after a late dinner,
are wont to pasp. the long winter evenings. It also serves
as a library, as evidenced by the tall black walnut book-
case enclosed with glass doors, which occupies the space
from floor to ceiling between the two low, French windows
at the front.

This contains a judicious selection of standard works
upon popular topics — historical, scientific and political —
and is fairly veil stocked with works of fiction from
Theodore Hook's "Jack Bragg" down to the latest conven-
tional "study" of the latest "gudiiing maiden fair," or
hankerer after ephemeral notoriety.

Here, too, upon an ornamental writing desk with folding
toj), in the far right-hand corner as you enter the room, the
private letters of the family are indited. A graceful gas
chandelier hangs suspended over the large, round centre
table, refulgent in a bright scarlet broad-cloth cover.

The walls, wherever otherwise unoccupied, are covered

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■with well mounted, rare, old steel engravings of English
rural scenes, and upon the broad, low, tiled mantel shelf
and filagreed brackets suspended here and there about the
walls are quaint and unique objects de vertu and bric-a-brac
of various descriptions and qualities.

In the rear of this apartment is the dining room, fur-
nished and upholstered d VAnglaise, in black walnut and
scarlet with a profusion of bright gilt-framed oil paintings —
some of them works of no mean merit — covering the red
papered walls in every direction.

From the large bay window looking to the west, and over
the one at the south leading to the conservatory, bright red
damask curtains hang suspended to the floor in graceful
and ample folds.

The large oval dining table is laid ready for dinner and
beneath the brilliant light of the overhanging chandelier
with its variegated colored lamp shades presents a refinedly
appetizing spectacle.

Mrs. Rathbone, her petite and still youthful figure
enveloped in a black merino gown, with scarlet trimmings,
a Dolly Varden cap upon her head and an Elizabethan ruff
about her neck, enters the rear door, which leads through a
passageway to the kitchen and servants' apartments just as
Mr. Rathbone, with the mendacious little sprite, Grace,
clinging to the sleeve of his right arm, enters from the front
entrance hall.

" Ah, Robert, " gently exclaimed Mrs. Rathbone greeting
her husband with a cheery little smile as she fussily
approached the open grate fire place, and proceeded to take

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155

the poker in hand and give it a stirring up, "back home
again, ay, dear?"

*' Yes, " he responded sententiously, as he pulled out his
watch, "Is dinner ready?"

"It will beat half past six as usual, " and then looking
at the clock on the mantel piece, she added, " In just ten
minutes from now it will be on the table. "

"That old Jacobin clock, " he asserted sharply, "is just
ten minutes slow. "

"Oh, Papa!" exclaimed Grace, now standing ou the
hearth rug beside him, " that can't be — let me look at your
watch," but he snapped the case together and put it back
into his pocket without allowing her to see it.

" It was right at one o'clock to-day," persisted Grace whose
ardor was somewhat dampened since her father's com-
parison of Charley Ford with the redoubtable Jesse James.
"I know it was, because when I came home from my music
lesson to lunch to-day I compared it with the city hall
time and it was exactly right."

" Well, it's not right now, then, " he asserted positively.
" I've no doubt it has been regulated to suit the delinquincies
of that precious boy John, as everything else in this house is
apparently. "

"Has anything gone wrong in the business today
Robert?'' asked Mrs. Rathbone, with hardening countenance
as she replaced the poker in its stand.

"No, nothing of anj^ material consequence," he replied
gruffly, " why do you ask ?"

He knew that in view of the Simpkins failure, this was

ir.3

]iOUI)KR CANUCJC3.

':{;,;,■

not true, but he had ever made it a rule never to discuss
his business matters at home.

This would have been trenching too much upon the
supremacy of his domestic dictatorship, and his wife had
therefore been kept as much in the dark as to the actual
condition of his business affairs as the veriest stranger.

He had periodically talked with her and given her a
showing of the investments he had made of the compara-
tively small patrimony she had inherited from her father,
but with reference to his own business proper he was ever
silent.

Hence it was, that to her well-nigh unprecedented request
to know whether anything had gone wrong in the business
he had made the mendacious reply he had, and asked why
she wanted to know.

" I only thought, " she said, in a voice with something of
a nervous tremor in it, " that you seem to have come home
in a very bad humor. "

" I won't at all admit that I have come home in a bad
humor, " he oracularly insisted, " and even if I had it
wouldn't have originated in my office. 1 think by this time
you ought to know that I never allow the state of my busi-
ness to influence my conduct at home. I must say, how-
ever, that the state of my domestic surroundings are day by
day becoming more disagreeably unpleasant !"

And then having seated himself in an arm chair, facing
the fire-place, with his back to the chandelier, he proceeded
i;0 open up the evening paper with a sort of " You-daren't-
knock-the-chip-o2-my-shoulder " air.

To this, the now much disturbed little wife, pursuing her

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usual policy of silence until the clouds rolled by, would
liave responded nothing but for the interposition of Grace.

That sylph-like ati J somewhat rufllcd young person, seat-
ing herself on her father's knee, with a pout and in injured
tones coqiiettishly observed: "It's too bad that you don't
like any of us any more 1 "

"What stuff and nonsense 1 " he exclaimed, as he threw
down the paper at the side of his chair and arose to his feet
again. "My feelings towards you and your mother and
Emily are as they ever have been, and I hope always will
be ; but I'm free to admit that I am becoming tired of being
made a convenience of and of having this house made a
boarding and lodging quarters for the more especial accom-
modation of an idle, worthless young cub ! " and, after glar-
ing for an instant at the now agitated little wife, he pro-
ceeded to pace back and forth across the room with scowl-
ing countenance.

The cat was out!

Mr. Rathbone had succeeded in working himself into a
rage at his truant hete noir son, and in doing so had made
the patient mother rather more uncontrollably out of temper
for the moment than she had ever allowed herself to be
before throughout their whole married life. She had suc-
ceeded heretofore, by the practice of a studied system of
forbearance and self-denial, in at least curbing the trucu-
lence of her exacting husband's jealous temper. Perhaps,
if she had been somewhat more self-assertive and com-
bative in her treatment of him when he had been seized
with these periodical tantrums, she might have contrived to
tide them over with less of humiliating jibes and jest to

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bear. For Mr. Ratlibone was essentially one of those genus
lords of creation whose blustering bark, being more bitter
than their bite, would have, in all likelibood, been managed
better by a little determined opposition and retaliation.

But the chastening and subduing influence her girlhood
disappointment as to Gustavus Ford had had upon her
interest in her early married life, coupled with the inner
consciousness that she was every day living in the guilt of
having withheld from her husband that which he sliould
have known before he had made her his wife, had enabled
her to practice all her inherent amiability and evenness of
temper with fairly successful results — not, however, with-
out much to bear of misery and humiliation. For herself,
in looking back upon these bitter trials, she did not so much
care. But this comparatively new feature in her crown of
sorrows — this perpetual scolding about her darling boy,
Jack, for no sufficient cause, was more than she could bear.
And tocall him a worthless young cub I This was outrageous,
and nothing had occurred between them for a long time that
had made her feel more pugnaciously retaliatory than this.

She understood her husband thoroughly.

She knew his every indiosyncrasy. She knew that as a
sort of freak in human motives he was insanely jealous of
the love and consideration shown by herself and the girls
for Jack; and she had long ago cautioned both Emily and
Grace not to be unnecessarily demonstrative of their
affection for their brother in the presence of their father.

For herself, she had often dissembled or disguised her
intense love and devotion for her son that his father's
temper might not be ruffled.

BORDER CANUCKS.

159

Oftentimes she had apparently seemed coldly indifferent
when Jack's interests were involved, while in fact she had
felt the most absorbing anxiety about them.

When he had finished at the local public school and it
became necessary to consider the best means of topping off
the elementary teachings obtained there with the higher
instruction furnished by a finishing school or college, she
had fondly wished that he might be sent to one of her own
denominational institutions either in the States or Canada.

But in view of their marriage compact with reference to
the rearing of the children she had hesitated about giving
utterance to the wish.

She had been allowed free scope in the religious and
secular bringing up of their daughters, and under these cir-
cumstances it was only just that her husband should be
equally untrammeled in the education of their son.

With insular superciliousness, sometimes the outcome of
ignorant prejudice, and sometimes the offspring of an
ineradicable j^^nchaiit for "every thiJik English you know."
Mr. Kathbone regarded the great institutions of learning on
this continent en masse as Brummagum establishments of
the most pronounced kind.

He would have liked to have sent his son home to
England to finish his education at one of the ancient schools
or colleges of his fatherland, but to this suggestion his wife
had raised the objection tLtt it would be sending him too
far way from home, and that it would make her very
unhappy to have the broad Atlantic 'twixt her and her
idolized boy.

Eecognizing the naturalness of this feeling on the part of

160

BORDER CAXCCKa

<.!#

1 -f ' i'

his patient wife, and having become measurably indifferent
about what concerned his half-fledged son, Mr, Rathbone
had proposed that the services of a private tutor might be
secured and the boy's education completed at home.

This had been done accordingly, to the profound satis-
faction of the mother — the foundation thereby being laid for
much paternal snarling and growling.

Nothing, however, up to this time had occurred which
wifely diplomacy and maternal devotion had been unable to
cope with. Certainly nothing so portentous of disaster to
Jack as this outbreak had ever manifested itself before.
The idea of calling her poor, dear, unjustly abused boy "an
idle, worthless young cub," and that in the presence of his
little sister, tool This was more than she would silently
put up with ! She must say something in remonstrance ;
but, oh, how tremblingly agitated she was with indignation !
She became as pale as the white rufi about her neck and
she shook like a leaf as, straightening herself up, with flash-
ing eyes, she said : " Robert, you ought to be ashamed of
3'ourself for feeling the wickedness you do towards your
own son, whom everybody gets on well with except his
own, unnatural father ! "

" I suppose by everybody," cried the head of the house,
still emulating the perambulating, caged tiger, "you mean
every stable boy and cock-fighter in the neighborhood ! "

"I do not !" vehemently rejoined the little mother, her
pent up temper now fully aflame; "I mean his own equals,
everywhere 1 And as for his present fancy for fowls and
horses, he will grow out of that — and he never would have
had it at all to the extent he has if it had not been for your

BORDER CANUCKS.

161

her
uals,

and
have
your

example and encouragement of it when he was a little
fellow 1"

This was a long speech for the tremulously amiable, little
woman in her present unusually excited condition, and
from sheer exhaustion she leaned her head uj)on her right
arm as it rested upon the low chimney mantel and panted
for breath.

"That's right ! " he replied, bitterly, as he wheeled about
in his pacing of the floor, " blame me ; I get the blainc for
everything ! Perhaps I am responsible for his whereabouts,
God knows where, at the present moment! Probably in
the harness room of some public stable in the city, or maybe
in some cock-pit in the purlieus of the town ! Perhaps I
am to blame," he continued, with rising intonation, as he
pursued his vibatory walk, " for his constantly repeated
absence from his meals with the rest of us, and his prowling
into the house at all hours of the night and day that hap-
pens to suit his convenience ! "

"Oh, papa! " poutingly remonstrated Grace, seated upon
an arm of her father's recently vacated chair, " Jack doesn't
prowl ! "

"Silence, miss!"' he thundered, as with a stamp of his
foot he came to a stand, and flaslied down upor^ his young-
est born with glittering glare and reddening countenance.

This outbreak so startled the unfortunate sylphide that
she involuntarily jumped to her feet, and gazing agliast for
an instant into the gleaming eyes of her ferocious parent,
she burst into tears and rushed out of the room.

There was now a pause of fiercely palpitating silence,
11

162

BORDEK CANUCKS.

■which, after an instant or so, was broken by the little
mother.

" Robert Rathbone 1 " she said, as she straightened herself
up from the mantel piece, " you can be the most uncon-
scionable bully in the world when you like ! It would
seem as if you could not help being so; but surely Goil
will some day punish you for the unnatural feelings you
have towards your own son ! "

It is safe to say that this was an unprecedentedly bitter
speech as eminating from this subdued and patient little
woman ; but

"The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,"

and her lord and master was brought to a stand and ren-
dered dumb for the instant by the novelty of it. He glared
at her aghast, at a loss what to say, while the old-fashioned
hall clock painfully resounded forth four or five slowly,
deliberate ticks of its long pendulum.

Then his momentarily suspended rage fumed forth again
with redoubled vigor, and the family skeleton emerged from
its closet in self-assertive sway as, resuming his pacing of
the floor, with a demoniacal chuckle, he said : "ii^son,
ay ? Ha, ha, umph ! My son ? I have very grave doubts
about his being my son ! "

If this venomous insinuation, before it was uttered, had
been materialized into a billet of wood and thrown at her
full in the face, it could not have subjected her nervous
system to a greater shock, or been more paralyzing in its
effects.

She recoiled, and her face blanched as with the startled

BOHDER CANUCKS.

163

liorror she might have felt luid she suddenly come upon a
threatening snuke.

She gave two or three long, gasping gulps for breath and
looked for an instant as if she might sink limp and prone
upon the hearth rug.

Then, with great apparent effort, she straightened her
petite figure up to its full height and, throwing back her
head, put her kit hand to her forehead as she steadied her-
self with her right upon the mantel piece, while she mut-
tered a prayer f.)r patience.

Then, with solemn dignity, she followed her husband
with her eyes as he pursued his vibratory walk, and in sub-
dued and deliberate tones said : " Robert, if you had said
that five minutes before, while Gracie was? in the room, I
should have left this house, never to return to it ! "

And, without further parley, she slowly, and with faltering
steps, as one weakened from illness, glided out into the
entrance hall and thence up the broad stair case to the floor
above, leaving her lord and master and the family skeleton
in full and undisputed possession of the regions below.

But this undisputed possession profited the skeleton
nothing, as the lord and master became conscious of a
rising suspicion that he had made a brute of himself.

Was marriage a failure ? Yes I most emphatically, yes.
Marriage ivas a failure.

He wished to God he had never been married. Ilowbeit
since he was married he would not shirk its respons-
ibilities. One of these was the enforcement of a proper
observance of discipline in his own domestic household, and
this lie was bound to do from this time forward.

»,! St; <■'.■■ j^

164

BORDER CANUCKS.

He ceased his pacing of the heavily Turkej-carpeted
floor and threw himself down into his own especial arm
chair, and gazing absorbedly upon the glowing grate fire,
ruminated upon the situation.

Under the baleful influence of the family skeleton, for
the first time in all his married life, he had openly referred
in so many words to the disturbing phantom of jealous sus-
picion, which, for its first few years, had periodically black-
ened his innermost thoughts and gnawed at his jaundiced
heart.

He had harked back to a tentative night-mare period of
existence, which his wife's long-suffering patience and
attention to his every wish and want had, to some extent,
lived down years ago.

And who had driven him to this ? John ! That incor-
rigible boy, John, whom his wife and daughters, dissemble
as they might, regarded with greater consideration than they
did himself.

How could he decently, without laying the foundation
for a scandal among the friends of the family, get rid of this
incubus upon his happiness in his own househeld?

He would see if something could not be done in the
premises to-morrow.

Meanwhile his better nature and his sense of justice
were beginning to assert themselves. There was no manner
of doubt but that he had been unwarrantably brutal to his
wife and little Gracie.

The trim wai Ling-maid here appeared at the rear door
with the first installment of the dinner.

BORDER CANUCKS.

165

He would run up to liis dressing room and wash his
hands and brush his hair as was his wont before sittinor

down.

As he came to the head of the stairs on his return to the
dining room, he paused for an instant, and facing the
lighted transom over the door of his wife's and his own joint
bedroom, he called out in as conciliatory and apologetic a
voice as he could command, "Come Emily, dinner is on!
Come Gracie!"

But there came no audible response.

A painful and ominous silence pervaded the upper floor
of the Eathbone mansion for the nonce.

Down stairs in the dining room, while the inviting repast
smoked upon the snowy damask-covered table, with its
costly dinner service, and well appointed plate and glass
ware, the hushed stillness of everything was still more
apparent, and the crackling, grate fire brought out in
bold and disagreeable relief the discordant condition of the
domestic atmosphere.

He would not sit down to dinner alone. lie would wait
for liis wife and daughter. Surely they could not ignore
his pacific announcement of its being on the table.

Meanwhile, with noiseless slackened footfall, he resumed
his ante-bellum pacing of the floor until the opening and
closing of a door upstairs, followed by light and hesitating
descending footsteps upon tlic stair case, betokened the
coming of his wife or youngest daughter.

He had time to take two or three leisurely turns up and
down before he at last veered about at the far end of the
room and' beheld Grace nervously absorbed in plucking at a

MmM

166

UOUDEli CANUCKS.

thread of yarn she held between the first finger and thumb
of her left hand, standing iu the doorway leading to the
entrance hall.

The unfortunate sylphidc was very mucli swollen of eye-
lids and flush'^d of face — her cheeks shining in thegas-light
with refulgent polish.

" Is your mother not coming down to dinner, Gracio ?" he
asked as he slowly approached her.

"No, papa," she replied, with an involuntary volley of
childlike inward sobs, "' she says she has a headaclie and
ho}>es you will excuse her if she doesn't come down. '

"Ah, she's not coming to dinner, ay?" he re[)eated as
going up to his youngest born, he took her hand in his '.nd
patting her upon the bowed head, he stooped over and
kissed her swollen, glistening cheek, whereat the sylphide's
pent-up, injured feelings again burst forth into a flood of
gushing tears.

" There, there now, '* he said in deprecating voice, as he
put his arm around her little figure and endeavored to
pacify her, "don't cry, my dear! Don't cry, there's a good
child. Let bygones be bygones and forgive your old father
who is sorry for being harsh with his poor little girl, " and
he kissed her again.

This was enough for the forgiving, albeit coquettish, pet of
the house.

She looked up smilingly through her sobbing tears, and
gushingly throwing bor arms around her father's neck, she
gave him a resounding smack upon the cheek with her
burning, quivering lips.

"Come now, dear, there's a good little girl," he said,

BORDER CANUCKS.

167

gently disengaging liimsclf from her twining arms and
straightening liiniself up "Come, since your motlicr is not
corning down, you and I must make the best of the dinner
all by oura<L'ives.

" Now, dear, you take your mamma's place at the
head of the table and be mistress, and I'll take mine at the
other end am] be your abject slave for the rest of the even-

ing.

But out of this arrangement there came but little joy or
satisfaction.

To her father's spasmodic cfTorts to cheer her up and
smooth matters as if nothing had happened, the j)oor syl[)h
was far too nervously anxious because of the portentous turn
alTairs had taken in respect of Jack.

She would do anything ir the world in Ler power to help
her brotlier out of the trouble she felt was inevitably in
store for him on his return from Belle River. She of course
was not afraid that Jack would be flogged. She knew that
the days of that kind of punishment in the household had
gone by; and she derived one further bit of consolation by
bringing to mind some of the numerous previous occasions
on which her mamma, in her quiet way, had contrived to
rescue dear old Jack from threateningly direful con-
sequences.

There was one thing, however, she could not rid her
thoughts of, and that was that it was very wicked and
uncharitable of her father to compare Charley Ford with
that horrible outlaw, Jesse James.

She icnew that the ferry boats across from the Canadian
side of the river ran until a late hour, and up to this time it

?ral

.J!*

168

BOllDEK CANUCKS,

had never occurred to her but that Jack would return some
time during that evening.

If she had known the true state of the case, and that at
that very moment both Charley Ford and Jack respect-
ively, with a pretty French girl hanging upon their respect-
ive right arms, were hilariously witnessing the struggle for
supremacy in the two-handed reel twixt the sportive Madam
Martin and Peter Bertrand at the widow's ball, her ner-
vously troubled condition might not have been quite so
poignant as it actually was.

Perhaps her anxiety about the outcome of it all in res])ect
of Jack might not have abated much; but she certainly
wouldn't have thought her father so bad a man after all for
having compared Charley Ford to Jesse James.

As it was, the dainty little Miss Gracie Rathbone con-
trived to bear herself with a semblance of cheerfulness,
until Mr. Rathbone, i'ising from his seat and taking up his
evening paper, invited her to accompany him into the library
and sit with him there for a time as was her and her mothers
wont when tluy were alone, and peace and harmony pre-
vailed t^.iroughout the presently distracted household.

Mr. Rathbone was not a smoker.

He had been far too dapper and circumspect (some might
say too sensible) in his youth and early manhood to con-
tract the habit, and now, of course, he was too old to acquire
a knowledge of the consolation to be gotten out of a judicious
use of tobacco.

Had he smoked, it would doubtless have exercised
a benignant and otherwise improving efl'ect upon his temper
and home conduct.

BORDER CANUCKS.

169

Are not all uncertain-tempered and irritable men improved
by a moderate use of a good sample of the aromatic weed ?

Do not the puffs pulled forth from a pipe of good tabacco
or from a fragrant cigar act upon the superabundant bile of
one of these, as do the pufl exhausts from a surcharged
engine boiler?

However that may be Mr. Eathbone did not object to the
smell of smoke.

In fact, he really liked the aroma of a good Ilavana cigar
and always kept a supply on hand for visiting friends.

After having occupied himself with his paper for half an
hour after he had seated himself before the crackling wood
fire in the so-called library, he turned to the demurely silent
Gracie, as she mechanically turned over the leaves of a
pictorial magazine at the other side of the centre table and
said, " I wish my dear, that you'd go out and tell the house-
maid to fetch the little brass kettle filled with hot water in
here and set it besi'^d the fire place. I think I should like
a glass of grog presently, and Mr. Chase may come in for a
game of cribbage and he'd want one too."

" Yes, papa, " responded the sylphide slowly and languidly
rising from her chair anc', going over to him, held up her
cheek to be kissed, "and I think I'll say good-night before
I go papa. Fm not feeling quite right and I think I'll go
to bed. "

A diplomatic young person was this youngest d 'rxghterof
Mr. Robert Rathbone.

She purposely avoided all reference to her mother's non-
appearance lest it might lead to the subject of Jack's con-

170

LORDEll CANUCKS.

tinued absence from the parental roof and thereby revive
the smouldering embers of paternal wrath.

"Very well, my dear," replied her father, "you had
perhaps better go up and see how your mother is getting on,
too. "

Manifestly the tyrant of the Kathbone household was
relenting of his ante-prandial treatment of his patient wife
and affectionate little daughter.

Not so, however, with regard to his complete loss of
patience with that growing red rag of his existence, his only
son and heir.

Annette, the pretty Frencli Canadian housemaid, having
brought in the hot water, he himself went to the sideboard,
and securing the other ingreilients made himself a hot
Scotch toddy. Over this and a succeeding, rather stronger
one, in undisturbed solitude he thought out the problems:
" What is to be done with that boy ? How is his presence
in the house decently to be gotten rid of?"

No matter what it cost, ere another week passed some-
thing definite rfust be decided upon in answer to these
embarrassing queries.

His friend and neighbor, Mr. Chase, did not c;)me in for
the game of cribbage and cigar after all, and he tried to
concentrate his thoughts upon along article in one of the
daily papers ( an extract from a labor journal ) upon the
iniquity of commercial trusts ; but he soon tired of this
and gradually nodded oS. into a sound sleep in peaceful
oblivion of domestic broils and embarrassing sons.

Waking up in due course he found the fire nearly gone
Qut and the hands of the clock on the mantel piece showing

i^t

BOKDEK CANUCKS.

171

the evening far enough spent to warrant liis going to bed,
which he was very glad of.

He wondered whether that boy John liad come in yet or
not?

He would look into the servants' sitting room and ask
Annette.

Pulling himself together he accordingly went. "lias
Master John come in yet? " he asked, as he opened the door,
to find Annette and another of the female servants busy
sewing at a brightly lighted table.

"No, monsieur, he have not arrive home yet," responded
the girl politely, in her pretty, French accent.

"Then, before you go to b'xl, Annette," he replied, "if
he still >^i.ould not have come in, \^lease see that all the
doors and windows are properly fas*^ened, as usual. The
house shall not be left open all night to suit anybody's con-
venience ! "

"No, monsieur, dat ees parfactly correc," assented
Annette, with a serious bow of her head.

"If Master John should C(jnie and want to get in an}"-
time after we have all gone to bed, I shall get up myself
and let him in."

" Verrah well, sair, " replied the urbane Annette,
demurely nodding her head — never intending ta comply
with the enjoinder, however.

She was far too loyal to her mistress and liked Jack too
well to think of doing so.

The master of the house now ascended to the joint parental
bed room, deserted of its mistress (who was quartered for
the night with Gracie, across the hall) and, after dismally

172

BOKDEK CANUCKS.

undressing, rolled himself in the luxurious coverings of the
capacious bed, and courted nature's sweet restorer in single
dissatisfaction.

His last thoughts before he fell asleep were a sort of
gloating over the probability of his being called up some-
time during th'^, night — the later the better — to let his
offending son in.

This would furnish tangible fuel for his wrath, and
further justify the peremptory course he had partially made
up his mind to adopt within the next week or so.

When at last he did drop off to sleep he dreamed that
Jack had grown suddenly to middle-aged manhood, and as
the son of Gustavus Ford was about to marry his mother
and take her off on a European trip, leaving him alone
with Gracie, who went about with her face all smeared with
blood.

Thus in grimly fantastic and indefinable shadows did
the head of the house of Rathbone & Ritter, slumberously
live the troubles of the evening over again.

CHAPTER IX.

A Sylph-like Albeit Artful Nurse.

XT;rHEN MR. RATHBONE had called out in con-

' * ciliating tones to his wife over the open transom of
her bedroom that dinner was ready and then had gone down
stairs to the dining room, the latter had gone across the hall
to Grade's luxuriant little sleeping apartment, where she
found that incipient young woman prone upon ber bed
struggling with a series of gradually subsiding sobs of
injured feelings.

Gently going over to her, the little mother sat down on
the edge of the bed and endeavored to pacify her youngest
born. "There now Gracie dear,'* she said soothingly,
"don't cry any more, there's a good girl! Your father
didn't mean so to ofiend you. I'm sure he didn't dear !"

" Yes he did too 1" insisted the pet of the house with her
handkerchief over her eyes.

" Oh no, I know he didn't, dear. "

"Yes, he did," persisted the sylph, with a long-drawn
shuddering sob, " I never saw him look so mad before. "

"But he wasn't mad with you, de;ir. He was as usual
annoyed with your brother Jack, and now unfortunately
that means me, too " she added with a deep-drawn sigh.

"I think he's a very unreasonable aud a very wicked
man ! "

" Well, he's sorry for it now, dear. Didn't you hear

(173)

174

BOHDEli CANUCKS.

him calling us to dinner before he went down stairs a
moment ago ? "

" Yes, I heard him," sobbed Grace, *' but I'm not going ! "

** Not for my sake, dear? " and bending over, she kissed
the pet of the house. "I'm sure you'll go down for my
sake, won't you, dear? One of us ought to go down, ami
your poor mother is really ill — yes, dear, really ill, with
such a sick headache," and the little woman laid lier
blanched cheek down upon the pillow along-side her
daughter's reclining head.

Rousing herself up to a sitting posture and gazing at her
pain-stricken face for an instant, Gracie gently stroked the
little mother's throbbing forehead and kissed her cheek in
gushing sympathy. ,

" I do hope you're not going to have one of those dread-
ful sick headaches of your's. Can't 1 do anything to relieve
you, mamma dear? "

"You can saturate a handkerchief with that alcohol
mixture and put it on my forehead, if you will, dear," lan-
guidly suggested the mother.

" Yes, of course I will, mamma," and she sprang from off
the bed, utterly forgetful of her own injured feelings.
" Where is the alcohol bottle mamma ? "

" I think it's in the bathroom. " And straightway the bottle
•was brought, the handkerchief saturated, and the old
fashioned woman's remedy for sick headache placed in
position. " Now dear, I'll be all right in a short time, " said
the mater in a subdued voice, as Gracie covered her with a
thickly wadded bed spread, " I hope her mother's own little

BOUDEll CANUCKS.

175

girl will go down and join her father at dinner, won't you
dear? kiss me, there's a good girl I"

" Of course I'll go down, mamma dear, since you're so
anxious that I sliould; but I'm not a bit hungry, and I'd
rather be whipped than go," she said, as she kissed the lit-
tle woman.

" I know, dear; I dare say you dislike going down very
much, but you'll feel all the better for having done your
du.y."

And thus, after washing her face and hands, the pet of
the household was instigated, with faltering, hesitating step,
to take her way down the broad staircase to join her father
at dinner, as recorded in the last cha})ter.

Albeit this dainty little youngest daughter of Robert and
Emily Rathbone had yet to see her fifteenth birthday, she
had even now become a typical child-woman of the period,
and like an affectionate, generous-hearted woman, capable
of the most self-sacrificing acts in the interest of any one
she really loved.

When, after the trying ordeal of that distasteful dinner,
she bade her father good night in the library, she returned to
her own room to find her mother lying upon the bed where
she had left her,

" Are you awake, mamma dear ? " she enquired, gently
going to the bedside on tip-toe.

"Yes, dear," whispered the little woman, sleepily.

" It's all over ! " with a sigh ; " I have said good- night to
papa."

"What's all over, my dear?" demanded the mother,
starting up out of a half doze.

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23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 872-4503

176

BORDER CANUCKS.

"Why, the dinner, of course," smilingly responded Gracie.

" Has Jack come in yet, dear ? "

" No, mamma, he hasn't come back yet."

" Oh, my God I what is to become of us ? " sighed the
little mother..

" Why, you mustn't talk like that, mamma I Jack's all
right."

" How do you know that he is all right, dear? "

" Because I know where he is — at least I know where
he started to go to."

" And where did he start to ? " asked the little woman,
anxiously gazing into the eyes of her daughter.

" Why, he and Charley Ford went to a race at Belle

j»

nver

"Well, my dear, why couldn't you have told me that
before? And I shouldn't have worried to the extent I have
about him."

" Well, mamma, I thought that they'd surely be back by
this time. And although they did not tell me not to tell
anybody where they had gone, I thought it best to keep
it a secret, because they might think it mean of me to tell
anybody without their authority, you know."

"They are both very bad boys to have stolen away in
the manner they did ! " vehemently asserted the mater,
rousing up from her recumbent posture on the bed. " And
I'll give Charley Ford a piece of my mind, about his lead-
ing Jack off to horse races, the first time I see him 1 "

"Oh, but mamma!" remdnstrated the sylph. "I don't
think Charley Ford led Jack to the race. In fact, I know
that if Jack hadn't told him about it Charley never would

iw>ri

BORDER CANUCKS.

177

later,

And

llead-

lon't
:now
l^ould

have known that there was to be a race at Belle River
to-day."

" Well, but Charley Ford is older than Jack, and he
ought to know better," sharply observed the mother.

i'He is only fifteen months older than Jack, mamma, "
weakly observed the sylph as she proceeded to take the
ribbon out of her long plait of braided brown hair.

It was quite evident that Mrs. Rathbone had made up
her mind to share her little daughter's bed for the night.
While Gracie was gone down to dinner the little woman had
aroused herself sufficiently to go across the liall to her own
apartment, procure her night gown, and robe herself for the
night; so that shortly after the sylphide's return to her
room after dinner, mother and daughter found themselves at
least physically comfortably bestowed along-side each other
in Gracie's luxurious bed for the night.

It was not absolutely iine mat blanche for either mother
or daughter. Now that the former was assured of the
whereabouts of her son she had found some consolation in
knowing that he had not fallen a victim to the many snares
and pitfalls extant witliin the city limits. It was her
exaggerated idea of the blanishments of these that to a large
extent reconciled her to Jack's frequent expeditions over
into the French settlements across the river.

Of that nationality herself, she knew that as compared
with the methods of others, tlio amu.sements of her own
primitive habitant people were measurably free from guile.

It was therefore in some sense with a feeling of relief
that she received Gracie's assurance that Jack had gone
over into Canada — notwithstanding that his object in going

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thither was to witness a horse race on the ice. Yet in view
of her husband's outrageous exhibition of temper because of
Jack's absence from the house at that hour without leave,
she looked forward with dread to the scene which would
surely attend his return either that night or on the morrow,
and it was well on towards morning ere her nervously
anxious consciousness drifted awaj'^ into peaceful rein-
vigorating sleep.

Meanwhile the young person who laid along-side her
mother, after frequent attemj)ts to engage her troubled
parent in desultory conversation of a designedly cheering
kind with indifferent success, lapsed off into a cor. 'emplation
of her own inneimost mental promptings.

She had great confidence in her patient little mother's
ability to manipulate Jack out of any serious consequences
of his escapade, and she therefore fell to elaborating a
little scheme especially designed for her own individual
delectation.

It must somewhat regretfully be admitted that this little
scheme upon her awakening on this Sabbath morn was not
without its impelling influence upon her religious designs
for the day.

" Mamma," she said on getting up and peeping througli
the side of the window blind at the weather outside, " do
you think you feel well enough to go to church this
morning ? "

" Not just now, dear," faintly replied the mater, not yet
out of bed ; " but perhaps after I have had a cup of tea I
may feel better." ^ .

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179

" Would you like one now, mamma ? " ^ ^ the eager
enquiry.

" Yes, I think I should, dear. Call out from the head of
the back stairway to Annette and ask her to make me a
strong cup of tea. I feel as though I wanted something to
strengthen me before I attempt to get up."

"Call out to Annette I" exclaimed the pet of the house,
with assumed disgust ; "I'd be a pretty one to call out to
Annette to fetch you up a cup of tea when you're not feel-
ing well, wouldn't I, now ? I, myself, who can make tea
with any man, woman or expert cook in the city or sur-
rounding country! Why, mamma," she went on, as she
hurried on her stockings and slippers, " what do you think
is going to become of your precious, youngest, female
daughter when she grows old and toothless and still in the
'jints', as Michael calls them, if, when she's young and
with suppleness endowed, she'd let any other person in the
crowd ( which it is poetry ) get the dearest little mother in
the world a cup of tea when that dearest little mother is not
feeling as well and happy as she deserves to feel every
second of every minute of every hour of every day of every
week of every month of every year of every decade of her
dear, precious, sweet, useful, invaluable life? Why, what
am I here for, I'd like to know? Am I ever to confine
myself to the purely ornamental in this transitory sphere?
Am I "

" Oh, Gracie, Gracie, you silly child ! " interrupted the
mother, laughing, " do stop that nonsense I "

" Yes, mamma dear, of a truth I think there's quite suf-
ficient nonsense in my having forgotten where I put that

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wrapper when I took it off yesterday morning. Ah, liere
it is I Here is the variegated garment of ample fold ! Thus
arrayed in matutinal attire," she continued with serious
face, elaborate bow and much affected importance, as she
left the room, '* I shall proceed to the culinary department
of this mansion in quest of that aromatic herb known to
commerce, society and the gastronomic world as /ea/"

Not a word had been said of Jack. In view of last
night's experience that young gentleman's continued absence
had become a subject too awful for discussion with the
anxious little mother. As for Grace, she had felt quite
certain before she went to sleep last night that her brother
would, in all likelihood, not return until ten or eleven
o'clock in the morning.

She thought it quite likely that he would have been
detained by the race until near dark, and an eighteen mile
drive on a dark night over indifferent sleighing was a seri-
ous undertaking. She, therefore, hoped that Jack and his
companion had remained over at Belle River for the night,
and the wish became father to the thought.

If she were correct in coming to this conclusion, then
they would be likely to come over from the Canadian side
on the ten o'clock ferry.

" Mamma dear," she said, demonstratively sniffing at the
fumes arising from the hot tea, as she handed the cup to her
mother, "if this should make you feel very, very much bet-
ter, and I am sure it will, for the aroma arising from it is of
itself e-normously revivifying — excuse my large language,
please — don't you think that in that case you might be

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181

induced to do what Mis. Dombcy didn't — make an effort
to get up shortly and take me to ear v muss?"

'' Why do you want to go to early mass my dear?"
'• Well one reason is that it's such a lovely morning. "
'' But you know there's no sermon preached at the early
service, " remonstrated the mother.

" Troth thin, ma'm,'' replied the sylph in Irish dialect, " if
we're to have foire and brimstone flujig at ns in bowld Irish
brogue to the extint we had by that rivcrend Irish gintle-
man last Sunday, I think we're well out of it, ma'm, an so I
do, ma'm ! Sure, ma'm, is the tay all right and to your loiking,
ma m :

"Yes dear, it's just right," replied the little woman,
laughing.

*' As good as Annette could have made it ?"
" Yes indeed, as good as anyone could have made it "
" There's the dearest and most grateful little mother in
the world for saying so, " and the gushing pet put her armb
around her mother's neck and kissed her voluminously.

Straightening herself up she resumed, "And you're sure
it's quite satisfactory to your palate and quite strong enough,
is it mamma?"

"Yes, quite satisfactory in every way."
"Then, " said the sylj)h dramatically, addressing the ceil*
ing with cla.«ped hands, " blessed be the Grand Mogul, the
Grand Mandarin or other supromel 3' elevated Chinese poten-
tate who first discovered teal Yes, tea! that beverage
which cheers but not inebriates — alike indispensable to the
palaces of the rich and consoling to the cabins of the poor!
Bless thee! bless thee, oh tea! Thou art about to' restore

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to the arms of a doting and somewhat demented daughter,
the fondest, the fairest, the most amiable, the most indul-
gent, the most affec — "

•'Oh, Gracie, my child," laughed the mother, "do stop
that nonsense. What on earth has come over you this
morning? I'm sure things are not so very bright with us
just now."

"Hem — ha — what did you say, darling mamma? Tell
Michael to have the horses and sleigh ready to take us to
church in half an hour' — is that what you said, darling
mamma?" and putting her hand to her ear, in imitation of
an old female benejiciare of the family, she continued,
"Excuse me, misses, I'se a leetle hard o'heerin; but if
that's what you ses, ma'm, I'll be right peert about givin'
the order.'*

" Well, then," said the little woman, laughingly, "you
can go and tell Michael to get the horses and sleigh ready
in half an hour," and as the diplomatic pet forthwith took
her departure to give Michael, the coachman, the desired
instructions, Mrs. Rathbone got out of bed.

Why Gracie was so bent upon going to early mass was
because she knew that there she would meet her friend and
quasi-conjidante, Emily Ritter, whom she particularly wanted
to see.

Why she wanted to see and confer with Miss Emily
Ritter will be made apparent in a subsequent chapter.

CHAPTER X.

An IdealUtic Stray Sfieep.

"TT was close upon nine o'clock with the bright unclouded
-^ sun's rays pouring in through the open topmost halves
of the two Venetian blintls, which shielded the windows of the
family bedroom looking eastward, ere Mr. Kathbone
aroused himself to a thoroughly awakened condition on the
morning after the events last recorded of him.

It had become his habit of late years to lie abed at least
two hours later on Sunday morning than was his wonted
hour for rising on week days.

He had fallen into the lazy habit of looking over the
Sunday morning's voluminous loc:\l papers, now become
so conspicuous a feature in Detroit's journalistic enterprise,
before he got up to leisurely dress and breakfast.

His wife usually brought him the papers and a cup of
coffee and a bit of buttered toast before he got out of bed
on the morning of the first day of the week.

But she had not done so this morning.

He supposed that she was too greviously annoyed with
him for what he had said to her last night to do so. W^ll,
he would try and make amends to her for what he had
said — but he was determined upon one thing, he would not
tolerate that boy John's presence in the house one day
longer than he could decently help. John it was who had
caused all the unpleasantness in the household since Emily's

(183)

-•^

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BOUIJEU CANUCKS.

marriage more than a year ago, and John, therefore, must
be got rid of.

However, it was time to get up now.

The bells of certain of the churches throuffhout the citv
were clanging forth the first installments of their invitations
to their followers — to the unregenerate sinner alike, widi
their pious front pew pillars — to the wolves and the lambs
— the goats and the sheep of their resjieetive folds — all were
being called to worsliij) at the sacred shrine of Ilim who
died for sinners.

Of late years the head of the prosperous firm of Rathbone
& Hitter had greatly fallen away from the tenets and active
observance of the faith of his fathers for so many genera-
tions })ast, and now his luxuriously upholstered front pew
in St Pancras' knew him but seldom.

In his early struggles to commercial success in the city —
when he was laying the foundation of his present generous
fortune — lie had found great satisfaction, not to say encour-
agement, in a regular attendance at his church and an active
participation in all moves looking to the advancement and
good of his communitj-.

"When Jack was a little boy in small clothes he had felt a
paternal pride and an unspeakable sense of well doing
when, leading his handsome, dapper little son by the hand, he
walked up the main aisle of his church, and in the sight of
his fellow-worshipers, took his seat in his pew each Sunday
morning with unfailing regularity.

But during these latter prosperous years he had become
impregnated with idealism and, like the sage of Chelsea,
had imbibed a predisposition to sco£E and inwardly sneer at

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BOKDEU CANUCKS.

185

all conventional signs and visible outward exhibitions of a
j)urely, presumedly, inward spiritual grace. He now looked
upon the large majority of ostentatious religious observ-
ances as a means — and a moat efficacious means — to a
materialistic end, to-wit, the accumulation of wealth and the
consequent respect of one's fellow citizens.

Any set of religious tenets, faith or theor;, , not absolutely
repugnant to one's reasoning faculties ( albeit the same
might be founded upon superstition pure and simple),
might be advantageously utilized in the interest of one's
material advancement during this pending, fleeting show.
But when this was the case the higher transcendental aims
of a divine faith must be set aside or be made subordinate
thereto.

lie had always felt a vague sense of the existence of two
separate and distinct departments in the orthodox faith in
which he had been reared, which held the same rela-
tive attitudes as to each other that the humam soul holds to
the human body. The one was the ideal or sentimental
head, while the other was the materialistic outward sign of
a not necessarily existent inward spiritual grace. To serve
one without slighting the other, or to serve each equally
well at one and the same time was as much out of the ques-
tion as is the proverbial impossibility of serving two
masters.

These kinds of reasonings and contemplations had
brought about in Mr. Rathbone, if not a total recantation,
at least a sad fallmg off from his early religious precepts.

Of late years this change had become so marked that for

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BORDEIl CANUCKS.

montlus nt a stretch liis pew in St Pancras' virtually
knew liim not.

At first his wife, notwithstanding the difTercncc of licr
fnith, was wont to remonstrate with him because of this
falling ofT and especially because of the bud example it
afforded their son John.

This, for a time at theoutsetof his decline, had frequently
instigated him to attend divine service when he would
have far rather remained at home and read his Sunday
papers.

Later on it grew less potent in its influence, and now that
tne turkey-gobbler spirit had taken such apparently com-
plete possession of him as to his son and heir, he had for a
long time ignored church attendance altogether.

Jack was old enough and ought to know enough to go
to church without an escort, and he was always made to go
if he ever manifested any disposition to remain away, which,
however, had been very rarely the case.

This morning, however, Mr. Raihbone bethought him
that he would attend divine service himself.

It might have the effect of showing his wife and Oracle,
without his being obliged to tell them in so many words
that he was as penitent as he could be about anything which
involved his position as supreme head of the household,
for the violence he had exhibited towards them last
evening.

And besides it would be a fitting prelude to the mandate
he was about to promulgate m respect of his son's dis-
position.

noUDKIl CANl'CKS.

187

IIo supposed of course that Jolm had gotten home by
this time.

How lie had contrived to yet in without his having hoard
him he couhl not well understand, because sleep liad only
come to him in fits and starts until well on towards
morning. But he supposed that Grace or liis mother, as
they were wont to ilo when the boy was out late, had
waited and .watched and surreptitiously let him in when he
had returned.

He would not say anything to him this morning-- atiy-
thmg in anger he meant. lie would be very dclibc-'le and
determined in what he was about to do, and lio would
commence by (;\Mng the boy to church with him this
morning To-morrow, witnout any ceremony, he v,ouId lay
before his son and heir the plan he had laid out for him
and insist upon his adopting it forthwith.

With this resolved upon as Iiis plan of campaign, he got
out of bed, dressed himself and went down stairs to the
dining room.

There he found his wife with her bonnet and furs on
alone at the breakfast table.

"Good morning Emily," he said, with a conciliatory
smile as he approached the blazing grate fire with out-
stretched palms.

"Good morning," responded the little woman with
serious countenance as she alternately sij)ped and gazed
down into her cup of coffee without looking up at him.

" I suppose that you're just going to church?" he remarked
cheerfully.

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BORDER CANUCKS.

" Just come from there, " she replied frigidly, " we went
to early mass."

" Oh, you did, ay ? and where is Gracie ?"

" I left her to walk home with Emily Ritter. She will be
hero ahoitly, " she added after a short pause, during which
he hesitatingly, as if about to ask another question,
approached the rear door leading to the kitchen and servants'
quarters. •

He was about to ask at what time Jack had returned, but
something in his better nature instigated him to forego the
question. -

Albeit as frigid and repelling in her manner as his wife
was to him, there was something in the pallor of her drawn
face and general appearance which betokened much suffer-
ing, and for the instant a pang of remorse shot through him
for his utterances of last evening.

He would go out and ask Michool, the coachman, at what
time that scapegrace of a boy had got in last night or this
morning, and he left the room without saying anything
further.

" What time did Master John get in last night, do you
know, Michael?" enquired Mr. Rathbone as, on entering
the commodious brick stable of the establishment, he found
his Irish retainer busy rubbing down the horses, which had
conveyed his mistress to church and back this morning.

" Sorra bit of me knows that, sor,"' replied Michael, con-
tinuing his currying and brushing.

" Isn't his pony in her stall ? " and he went over to look.
" No, she's not there," he said to himself rather than to the
groom.

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BORDER CANUCKS.

189

"Sure, his pony wouldn't be loikely to come home wid-
out himself, sor, though she be a mighty wise pony, that

sanie, sor.

" Where do you think he went to, Michael ? "

" Well," said Michael, suspending his grooming and tak-
ing oS. his cap and wiping his face with his shirt sleeve,
"You see I'd not be loikely to know where he wint, sor,
unless Masther Jack towld me himself f where he was goin'
before he wint away."

As a matter of fact, Michael was very well aware of
where Jack had gone, but being a warm admirer of that
young gentleman, he certainly was not going to admit it.

" I suppose he is somewhere over in Canada, " observed
Mr. Rathbone, as he turned to leave the stable.

" Maybe so, sor, maybe so — that's very true, sor," assented
Michael, hissing and rubbing away demonstratively.

"Gone over to some low-down, French horse race, I sup-
pose. I'll see whether I can't put a stop to this sort of
thing!" added the turkey-gobbler spirit, as he proceeded
on his way across the yard back to the house with rising
choler.

" Bedad, thim Frinch is great for racin', sor, and no mis-
take," and ceasing his carrying and hissing for an instant
to glance at the retreating form of his em iloyer, he added,
" Tare an houns, but the bass is great at guessin,' and no
mistake," and then he resumed his grooming and hissing
with renewed vigor.

As Mr. Rathbone wended his way back to the dining
room he ma}' be said to have worked himself into a white
heat of passion.

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BORDER CANUCKS.

But upon the principle that extremes meet, these
excessive tempers often induce a quieter and more delib "ate
style of utterance than do the red faced frothy spells wh.^h
are so often the besetting sin of mortals otherwise com-
paratively unobjectionable.

When he entered the room where he found his wife still
seated at the breakfast table, his blue eyes flashed forth a
venomous gleam of wickedness, pnd the flesh upon his
prominent cheek bones became abnormally white, while his
side-whiskered jaw and large thin-lipped mouth were set
with angry determination.

As he entered and stood upon the hearth rug with his
back to the glowing fireplace, Mrs. Rathbone arose from her
seat and turning, glanced at her husband with a look of
trembling enquiry.

*' Emily, " he said in subdued voice.

*' Yes Robert, " she responded nervously.

" Of course you are aware that that boy has not got back
yet?"

*' Yes, Robert, " she muttered with a little sob.

" Do.you think his not having done so is a proper obser-
vance of the lenient rules and mild forms of discipline I
have laid down for his guidance while he remains under
this roof? Here it is church time, and yet he is away
gallivanting about the country with some of his blackguard
boon companions I've no doubt, " and then he resumed the
caged animal perambulation of the floor of the previous
evening.

She would have remonstrated with the last part of this
speech, but to do so would have obliged her to say that

BORDER CANUCKS.

191

Jack had set out with Charley Ford, and the name of Ford,
of old time recollection after what had occurred last evening
had better be left unspoken.

Finding that she received his question in silence, he
flared up in louder, irrepressibly angry tones, "Yet you
say that I am unjustifiably severe with him, and you and
the girls have fallen into the habit of petting him and show-
ing him as much consideration as if he were the most import-
ant personage in the world, and indispensable to the welfare
and happiness of this household I You do this, I presume,
to make amends for my alleged severity I "

The truth is much more likely of utterance in a passion
than it proverbially is in jest

"For well-nigh two years, now, I have had but little
peace or satisfaction at home, here," he continued, "because
of this absurd lionizing of the graceless, young ruffian ! "

" Eobert ! " she said, with a flash of anger, as she straight-
ened her petite figure up to its full height, while two large
tears slowly coursed down her drawn cheeks, " Robert,
though you doubt his being your own child, he does not
deserve your calling him a graceless, young ruffian 1 "

He turned in his walk and paused for an instant before
he said in a measurably apologetic manner: "Emily, I do
not doubt his being my own child, and I have since
regretted what I said last night. It would have been better
unsaid. "

" Oh Robert, " she exclaimed, as if stricken to the heart,
as she raised her hands above her head and fell limp into an
arm chair. " You well-nigh broke my heart wlien you said
that you doubted my honor as your wife !" and putting her

192

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face in her hands upon her lap she sobbed as if her heart
would really break.

Then he went to her, and raising her up from the chair in
which she sat in such abandonment of grief, he took her in
his arms tenderly and patted her upon her seal skin covered
shoulders and soothingly begged of her not to take on in
that manner.

"It makes me very unhappy to see you in this condition,
Emily, " he said in a very much mollified and conciliatory
voice. "Come, don't cry, there's a good little woman. I
was very much annoyed when I said what I did to you last
night and I hope you'll forget it and put it away from your
mind altogether. "

The man though a consummate bully within the precints
of his own family circle, and a victim of one of the manifold
and mysterious forms that all-absorbing passion, jealousy,
sometimes assumes, was none the less on occasion capable of
generous impulses.

He always was used to say of himself that he could never
stand a woman's tears. This fact his wife and daughters
were well aware of, and, the girls especially, in their con-
tentions with him had often assumed the demonstratively
lachrymose when they really did not feel to that extent
effected for the sake of carrying their point with him which
they rarely failed to do when this method was judiciously
practiced.

There was, however, no assumption of an outward and
visible show of grief that did not exist within the bosom of
his wife now.

Last night's raking up of the skeleton of their early mar-

and
)m of

mar-

BORDER CANUCKS.

193

ried life had greatly shaken her, and the perturbed frame of
mind which Jack's continued absence had thrown her into
had not failed of adding fuel to the flame of her sorrows,
and abject discomfiture.

It was, therefore, a great relief to her pent-up, harrowed
feelings when the assurance fell upon her ears that he was
sorry for what he had said last evening, and that he doubted
not the legitimacy of her son, and a genuine overflow of
down-pouring tears was the natural womanly c jnsequence.

In reply to her husband's saying that he had a proposal
to make with reference to what had best be done with Jack,
amidst her gradually slackening sobs, she said : " Oh,
Robert, I earnestly pray that something may be done that
will bring greater harmony and contentment to us all."

" Well, then, this is what I propose to do with John,
Emily," he replied, as he kissed her and slowly resumed
his pacing of the floor ; " You know that I have not been
over-exacting with reference to my religious faith in the
education of John thus far ? "

" Yes, Robert, you have been very good and liberal, I'm
sure," she assented, drying her eyes with a dainty lace
handkerchief, as she stood upon the hearth rug.

" It was out of consideration for what I presumed to be
your wishes upon the subject that I suggested, as a sort of
compromise between us from a religious point of view, old
man Hamilton's employment as his private tutor that he
might complete his education under your own eye at
home."

"Yes, Robert," she replied feelingly, with a shivering

'.■■%S

194

BORDER CANUCKS.

sob, "and I ha^e always felt the deepest sense of appre-
ciation of your consideration for me in having done so."

"Unfortunately," he continued, "I have found out that
in doing this I made a grave mistake, and that my good
intentions to you in the premises have only resulted in
bringing about a state of things which, I am resolved, shall
no longer continue."

She might have said much in explanation of how this
juncture had been reached — how that the lack of harmony,
which had existed for these last past months, had been
largely brought about by his own unnatural feelings of
jealousy of his own son — but the spirit of recrimination,
never strong within her, had left her altogether now, and
she said nothing.

*'>Jow this is what I propose shall be done and done at
once, " he said peremptorily. " John must be packed off bag
and baggage to some one of the colleg^ in the country —
Yale, Fordhara oi' Havard. I don't care to what school he
goes — so long as he leaves this house before the end of the
weekl"

The vehemence of the latter part of this speech again
brought irrepressible tears to this doting little mother's eyes
as she quietly acquiesced by saying: "Well, Robert, I
suppose that is the best thing that can be done under the
circumstances and I shall endeaver to have him ready to
start whenever you say."

" I don't want to have anything more to say upon the
subject, " he said decisively, " when or how he shall start, so
long as he starts before the end of this week, I leave to you
entirely. I am too much out of patience with him to want

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195

this

to have anything more to do with him until he has mended
his ways. As to what particular school or college he goes
to, that I shall also leave entirely to you — or perhaps, " he
added bitterly, "on second thought, you had better let the
precious young scapegrace choose for himself what institu-
tion shall have the distinguished honor of developing his
brilliant attainments."

After delivering which magnanmious mandate he ceased
his pacing of the floor and took his seat at the head of the
breakfast table.

"Very well, Robert, " patiently assented the little woman,
"Just as you say," and taking her seat at the table opposite
him she remarked: " Shall I pour you out some coffee ?"

" Yes, please. I think I shall go to church this morn-
ing. "

"Going to church are you?" she exclaimed with irre-
pressible surprise. " I'm very glad you're going to church,
Robert."

Thus it was that on this particular Sabbath morning the
congregation of St Pancras' Episcopal Church was furnished
a cause for rejoicing in the tentative return to the fold of a
long strayed sheep.

10^1^;

CHAPTER XL

Firat Love'a Conspiracy.

/^ RACE WAS not disappointed in respect of finding her
^^ friend and boon companion at early mass.

There sat Miss Emily Ritter in the adjoining pew in all
her native 7ion chalant grace of inanimate-looking flaxen
hair, and premature tendency to embonpoint for one of
scarce sixteen summers.

Howbeit, becomingly dressed in a close-fitting surtout of
black fur with cap to match, she was not altogether ill to
look upon so long as she allowed her capacious mouth and
substantial lips to remain in repose, which, what with gum-
chewing and voluble conversational powers, was a matter
of rare occurrence, however.

She chewed gum continuously throughout the short ser-
vice, while the expression of her pale-blue eyes took on a
sort of far-away look, as if ineffectually attempting to dis-
tinguish objects at a distance through turbid water.

When she met Grace in the vestibule of the church after
service, she chewed out her surprise that she and Mrs.
Rathbone should have so departed from their usual practice
of attending half past ten o'clock high mass.

"Well, now, Grace Rathbone!" she exclaimed, as that
young person and her mother emerged from the sacred
edifice, " who'd have ever thought of seeing you at early

Pray, whose yoke of oxen hauled you
(197)

mass this morning?

19S

BOKUKK CANUCKS.

out of bed in time to got hero at eight o'clock ? Whoever
they belong to, they're prize animals, any way, because my
experience of you is that you're the greatest stay-abecl in
Michigan! Good morning, Mrs. Rathbone; early rising
doesn't seem to agree with you either, because you're look-
ing unusually pale. Hope you haven't been sick?" with
which tender, albeit brusque, enquiry this flaxen-haired
maiden came to the end of her tether as to breath, as it were.

" Oh, no, Emily," replied Mrs. Rathbone, smilingly, " I've
not been ill ; and we're not such slow coaches in the morn-
ing as you seem to think we are," she added, reprovingly.
"How is your mother, my dear? "

"Oh, as well as could be expected, thank you, Mrs. Rath-
bone. You know, for a long time past, I have been com-
ing to early church Sundays so as to let ma come to high.

»»

mass.

" That's a very good and considerate thing to do, dear,"
assented the little woman, pleasantly.

"Because, you know, we couldn't both be away from the
house at the same time," continued Miss Ritter. "That
confounded rheumatic gout of pa's has made him so nervous
and crotchety, that one of us must be within call every
minute of the day and night If he didn't have one of us
always handy by to order around and nag and scold at, I
believe he'd take a fit and go off in a blue flame, like
Jacob Faithful's mother! I really do believe he would!
Why, Grace, what's the matter with you this morning ? "

" Nothing's the matter with me," responded the sylph.

"Does early rising affect your tongue? You're as silent
as a wooden Indian and look as glum as one too."

' ]

BOUUKU CANUCKS.

199

"If you'd have said blind Indian you'd have been nearer
the mark, " observed Grace as they reached tlio outer
threshold where Mrs. Ratlibone stopped to talk with one of
her pensioners among the indigent of the congregation.

** Why blind Indian pray?" queried MissRitter.

"Because you've pretty nearly talked me l)lind already."

"Oh, pshaw! You get out! You're always saying or
insinuating that I talk too much. Well, I dare say I do
talk a good deal — but I suppose I was born that way."

"What! Surely you don't mean to say that you could
talk when you were born do you?" laughingly exclaimed
Miss Ruthbone.

" Ha, ha, ha ! Oh, no, of course I didn't mean that, but I
am quite sure that I could cry."

" Any baby can do that. "

•'Well, crying is next to talking. "

" Then 3'ou must have done a heap of crying when you
were an infant," and having reached the sidewalk thedainty
Miss Gracie, out of hearing of her mother, gushingly and
confidingly changed the subject abruptly by exclaiming:

" Oil, Emily I I vvant you to give me a pressing invitation
to go home with you this morning — but of course you
musn't let mamma know that I suggested to you to do so."

"Why, what do you take me for?" queried Miss Ritter
with disgust in her voice, "Talking about being born, that
event didn't happen with me yesterday. "

" I have got something very especially particular to talk
and advise with you about," continued the sylph, "very
particular indeed. "

200

IJOUDKU CANUCKS.

"Well, what's the matter with you're telling a fellow
about it now tlicii. "

*'No, no, wait till mamma goes home, haven't time now !
Here she comes. Now don't fail me Emily I"

As Mrs. liiithbone, having fiiiislied liur interview with
her im])euuni()U3 j^^oiege joined the girls at the carriage
which was drawn up along-side the curb, Emily gushingly
exclaimed in appealing tones: "Oh, Mrs. lltilhbone, I do
so wish you'd let Giaee come home to breakfast with mo
this morning. I want to sliow her the new dress I got home
from the dressmaker's last niglit, and I'll walk home with
her afterwards. "

"W_'ll, dear," said Mrs. Rathbone looking at Grace,
" would you like to go home with Emily for a little while?"

"Yes, mamma, I'd like to go very much if you don't
mind going home alone, " and a pang of remorco flashed
across the inner conscience of this arch schemer.

•'Oh, no, I don't mind," remarked the amiable little
mater as she stepped into the carriage, " I shall expect you
to come home early. Mind you come home with her Emily,
and ask your mamma to allow you to stop to dinner with
us. Good-bve, " and the little woman nodded her head
"milingly to the two conspirators as the carriage drove off
rapidly.

"Well, now, Madame Von Bismarck," exclaimed Miss
Ritter, masticating her quid of gum with renewed vigor,
turning to Grace, "what is your little game? Propound
your pol'cy, fulminate your project I Anything special in
the wind ? " and they proceeded to walk leisurely along.

UOUUER CANUCKS.

201

"Well," replied the sylphitle, as she nervously gazetl
down at lier dainty little feet us they alternately bobbed
forth from beneath her dress skirt, " I suppose, Emily, you
would do anything in reason for Jaek, wouldn't you ?"

"Yes, you can just bet I would, and a good deal out of
reason, too, if it came to a pinch ! Jack's one of my kind !
No nonsense aboui Johnnie — but just level-headed and
reliable. I just think he's the nicest young fellow in the
city ! I know he doesn't think me a regular, full-fledged
houri in point of perso; 1 aj^pearance, but I know he likes
me in a friendly way, auw I reciprocate his friendship. But
it's only friendship, you know; no such thing as namby
pamby love could exist 'twixt Jack and I."

"Well, then, said the. sylph, looking up at her voluble
and rotund friend, "I must tell you that Jack's got into
great trouble, and I'm afraid something awful is going to
happen ! "

"Why, what's the matter with him? What's he been
doing?" and Miss Ritter ceased her gum-chewing and
gazed upon her nervous little companion with anxiety and
concern depicted upon her countenance. " Has he been
doing something he ought not to have done ? "

"Well, papa thinks so, anyway ; and he's in a towering
rage about it"

"What is it? What has he done — robbed a bank or
murdered anybody ? "

"Oh, no! nothing so very dreadful. He went up to
Belle River to a race yesterday morning and hasn't got
back yet J and you know papa had forbidden his going to
any more of those kind of races without his express per-

lift'

202

BORDER CANUCKS.

mission. I am sure if I'd supposed that there was going to
be such a fuss made about his going, I should never have
helped him away,"

"Why, how did you help Vim away?'*

" You know I go to the convent for my music lesson on
Saturday mornings, and yesterday I pretended that I didn't
feel well enough to walk, and asked mamma to let Jack
drive me. In that way he contrived to get Bijou and the
sleigh out of the stable without being obliged to give an
account of where he was going."

" That was very sisterly and very proper of you — just
what I'd have done. Only I think I'd have left the music
for some future day and gone to the race with him."

" Oh, Emily !" exclaimed the sylph blushing. " I could
not have gone with Jack yesterday. "

*' Well I should have if I'd been in your place — that is if
he'd have consented to take me of course — and your father
is kicking up Dido about it, ay ?"

" Yes, he's just rampant !" asserted Gracie.

" Well, confound those old men anyway ! I know what
they are when they get their backs up, you bet !" oracularly
observed Miss Eitter. " We've got one at our house who,
from morning till night, now that he's got that rheumatic
gout, day in and day out, week days, Sundays, holidays and
holy days — it makes no difference when — wears a hump
on his back as big as a camel. I'll back him for cantanker-
ousnesss against any aged gentleman citizen of these United
States and pay anybody that'll take the bet. Oh, yes, I
know what a grumbling, nagging old man is I It's only

BORDZR CANUCKS.

203

sometimes with you at your 1 Ous?, but it-'s come to stay
with us."

"Well, I hope it's not come to stay with us, " tremulously
exclaimed Miss Rathbone. " I never saw papa so beside
himself as he was last night, and I've seen him angry with
Jack very often."

" Well, what do you think is going to be done with him
when he returns on this occasion?"

" I'm sure I don't know, " replied the sylph nervously,
forgetting for the moment the main object of her morning's
expedition. " Mamma has always heretofore contrivfAi to
smooth matters over for Jack with papa, but I am u'raid
something awful is going to happen this time. "

"Your father is certainly not going to try to whip him,
is he ? because from what I know of Jack, that would be a
big undertaking if he didn't choose to submit. "

"Oh, of course papa would not attempt to whip Jack!
My brother is too much of a man for that now, " proudly
assented the sylph with confidence, " but I'm afraid he's
going to do something far worse. "

"Why, what on earth can he do? lie is not going to
shoot his own son, surely ! And he can't have him pat in
juil, because going to a race at Belle River is not a criminal
offense, if I know anything about the laws of this great and
glorious country ! ''

"No," responded Grace, with a little sob, as she put her
handkerchief up to her eyes, "I think he'll be sent away
from home — banished, you know — at least for a short time."

"Well, worse things than that might take place, I'm sure.
It might turn out the best thing that could happen Jack to

■).

204

BORDER CANUCKS.

be sent away somewhere for a time. To see a little of the
world outside of Detroit would certainly not injure him
But what are you going to do about it? What has all this
got to do with your wanting me to in\lte you to breakfast
this morning?" enquired Miss Eitter, with vibratory jaws,
as they reached the corner of the street leading to the Bitter
habitation.

"I'll tell you, Emily," siraperingly replied the dainty
little schemer, as she became intent upon her pretty little
feet again ; " I thought it would be a good thing to go down
to the ferry and meet Jack when he comes over, and tell
him how matters stand at home ; and I'd like you to go
with me." '

" Why, of course I'll go with you," assented the other
gushingly, " and right glad if I thought it would do Jack
any good" she added, as she took her quid of gum out of
her mouth ^nd kneaded it between her fore finger and
thumb. "Bat I must say that I fail to see the merit of
telling a fellow beforehand that he's going to be annihil-
ated when he returns to the parental roof after a truant
abseuce."

To this, the now subdued and crest-fallen little schemer
made no reply as they turned and took their way in the
direction of the ferry landing.

"Did anybody go to Belle Eiver with Jack?" asked
Miss Hitter as, after inspecting her chew of gum intently
and absently for an instant,, she restored it back to her
mouth again.

" Go to Belle River with Jack, did you say, Emily? "

" Yes, did anybody from the city go to the race with

BORDER CANUCKS.

205

him?" repeated Emily pointedly, gazing upon the mantling
little face of the conscious sylph and munching away at her
gum voraciously.

" Why, yes, Emily, " replied the little one with affected
surprise. " Didn't I tell you before ? Why, Charley Ford
went with him, you know."

"Oh, pshaw I" exclaimed Miss Ritter in tones of disgust.
" I'm just too green to live in the winter time. Why, of
course ! Now I know why you're so anxious to go down
to meet Jack at the ferry !"

"Oh, Emily!" remonstrated the sylph with face aflame, •
" No, you don't, either."

" Yes, I do, though," insisted the other as she demonstra-
tively munched away. "Of course 1 do! and all I've got
to say is that you're welcome to your fancy."

" I haven't got any fancy ! you know I haven't, Emily I"
intent upon the sidewalk.

" No, I don't know anything of the sort Miss Rathbone,
either! I've got ears to hear as any one who'll con-
descend to look at me will see for himself or herself with-
out the aid of magnifying glasses ; and my eyes, although
they may not be absolutely dazzling orbs, suit me well
enough to see with."

" But you're wrong about my having any special fancy
for anyone," deprecated the blushing little schemer.

"Oh, no, I'm not wrong," urged Emily confidently.
"But what Jack can see in that dude to be always toting
him about with him is more than I can explain to my own
satisfaction." «

' 1

206

BORDER CANUCKS.

" "What do you mean by a dude?" demurely asked Grace,
looking ahead of her.

"A dude! why he's a thing in tight pants and pointed
shoes, a high, shiny, sti£E dog collar — the chief foundation
of his little head, and a beard, (if he's old enough to grow
one) that looks like another man's back hair parted in tlie
middle, plastered.on his chin, a tight fitting cut-away coat, a
round top hard hat, and when he's an extra fine sample of
the breed, he wears a short stick and a rimless eye glass
stuck in his right eye. "

" But Charley Ford doesn't wear a short stick and an eye
glass," interposed Gracie deprecatingly.

" No, I know he doesn't — at least I never saw him wear
one," qualified Miss Eitter, " but if he doesn't, it's because
he's only half-fledged as yet. You just wait until he gets
all his feathers and you'll see that he'll blossom forth into a
dude with the closest observance to details of costume, as
theatrical managers say of their performances. Well,
there's the boat just coming in now, " added this gum-
chewing despiser of the genus dude as they neared the ferry
landing at the foot of the street, " and I don't see any grey
pony and sleigh on the forward deck. "

" No, neither do I, " assented the sylph disappointedly
absorbed in an inward contemplation of what a queer com-
pound of human idiocyncrasies a dude and a prototype of
Jesse James all rolled up into one man would make. " It's
the Victoria too, the boat Jack usually crosses on, " she
added.

*' Well, we'll wait until the people get off, " suggested the
practical Miss Eitter, " and then we'll go on board and ask

BORDER CANUCKS.

207

the Captain if they came over with him on any of his pre-
vious trips this morning."

And following this suggestion the two girls silently stood
without the exit gangway and waited until the passengers,
a large number of them intending worshipers at the various
churches in the city that morning, streamed off the ferry
boat.

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CHAPTER XIL

Friendly Relations, or Ultimate Annexation t

rpo STRANGERS visiting the neighborhood for the first
•^ time — those having a proper understanding of the
hampered nature of trade relations between the two coun-
tries — the constant stream of travel and traffic between
Detroit and Windsor is ever a matter of surprise, not to say
wonder.

If that at present problematical chimera, annexation, were
ever brought about, while Detroit would be enormously
advantaged as a trade centre, in that it would make her the
entrepot of the most fertile and productive portion of south-
ern Ontario, in addition to her already tributary possessions
in that regard, Windsor would feel the transition less from
a social point of view and be more materially benefited in
the enhancement of values of real estate than would any
other Canadian town along the frontier.

At present a quasi suburb of the City of the Straits, with
annexation, she would inevitably become a sort of South
Detroit — as Brooklyn is to New York, if not absolutely
part and parcel of her fair metropolitan neighbor — so strong
is the social and commercial affinity 'twixt the two cities.

But, for that matter, do not advocates of closer national
relations claim that this same affinity, to a marked degree,
belongs to the two countries at large, albeit they each of

(209)

210

BORDER CANUCKS.

them have a brusque way of showing it at times, to use a
mild phrase?

Yet, from a Canadian's point of view, there would seem
to he something touchingly mch^ncholy in the bare thought
of his being cajoled, negotiated or forced into relinquishing
so fair a national heritage as he possesses in his vast and
prolific domain, and the superior judiciary laws he enjoys
under a more utterly democratic form of government than
have his brothers at the south of him.

lie argues that he has everything to be proud of in the
twenty-two years of his young national life ; that the devel-
opment of his country's boundless resources, though still
upon the threshold of its being, has thus far been produc-
tive of marvelous results, and that with an abiding faith
and pride in his national birth-right, he can work out his
own destiny and maintain his own national identity upon
the lines laid down with the inaguration of confederation
in 1867.

It goes without saying that this will be the attitude
assumed and firmly upheld by the French portion of
Canada's population when the question of annexation takes
on a tangible form or shape with a definite coloring as a liv-
ing issue before the Canadian people.

In the meantime certain of their politicians, to serve
ephemeral party ends, may find it in them to coquet
with the question ; but when the time comes, if come it
must, the descendants of La Nouvelle France, judging them
by the light of their heroically unique and conservative
history upon this continent, will be found to a man shoulder
to shoulder, defending the identity of their language and

BOliDEB CANUCKS.

211

the maintenance of their " peculiar institutions" which, in
the event of Canada's absorption into the Union, would of
necessity cease and determine as guaranteed privileges.

The untrammelled exercise of these guaranteed privil-
eges, since confederation, in that part of the Dominion
known as the Province of Quebec, has made that part of
Canada more French than many parts of old France, and
from a religious point of view perhaps the most so-called
ultra Montane country in the civilized world.

From the vantage ground of that Province during the
last dozen years and more, have been promulgated teach-
ings designed to set aflame in vigorous glow an esprit de corps
as to its national origin and entity which had languished
and declined to the condition of slowly dying embers with
the descendants of the French race outside the limits of its
own confines.

Hence it is now that we hear of French aggression in
Ontario and Manitoba, and an irrepressible conflict would
seem to have been inaugurated. Nor has the influence of
these teachings been confined to the limits of the Dominion.

It has extended itself to Northern Michigan, Wisconsin,
the eastern manufacturing states, and wherever communities
of French Canadians are to be found established throughout
the union.

While fifteen years ago it was no uncommon thing in the
states bordering on the dominion, to hear two French Cana-
dians carrying on a conversation in broken English with each
other, as if they were ashamed of their own mother tongue,
now they prefer and seem proud of their own native patois
as a means of inter-communication.

212

BORDER CANUCEa

In respect of Quebec's attitude with reference to the
English speaking, provinces, which constitute the great bullc
of the Dominion confederation, if one chose to indulge in
analogy one might plausibly demonstrate that, with her
guaranteed " peculiar institutions, " her position as to the
union of the British provinces on this continent assimilates
very strongly to what was that of the Southern States and
their institution of slavery in respect of the American union
before the late civil war in this country.

Then there is another coincidence belonging to the two
positions which might be profitably speculated upon by
Canadians, and that is that while the Southern States prac-
tically controlled the government of the union up to the
first election of Mr. Lincoln, the Province of Quebec has
been the de facto ruler of the destinies of Canada, since the
union of the two Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada
in 1841.

When the South lost her control she withdrew from the
Union, fired upon Fort Sumpter and let loose the dogs of
war; and there are those who say that they can see a hand-
writing upon the wall, indicating a similar course on the
part of the French province as to the Canadian Union so
soon as the time shall become ripe for it.

Should history repeat itself, as it were, in this manner,
then would annexation become a tangible issue and per-
chance a practical proposition ; but until then, Canada will
be likely to prefer to paddle her own canoe after her own
democratic methods as part and parcel of the British Empire.

However this may be, the present neighborly intercourse
existing between the two sides of the border at Detroit and

BORDEIi CANUCKS.

213

Windsor, despite custom's exactions, is likely to continue ;
and the latter city, because of the number of Detroiters
who are constantly taking up tlieir residences there, is prac-
tically becoming a handsomely embellished civic adjunct
to her larger and fairer cousin across the noble river.

Nothing has contributed more to bringing about this
state of things than the admirably systematic and puncturl
ferry service which exists between the two cities. This is
performed by an organization known as the "Detroit Belle
Isle and Windsor Ferry Company," whose five large
steamers, for the purpose they were designed, are unique
specimens of marine architecture.

Tlie harbinger of the line and peculiar style of model d
the " Victoria " which was designed by her one-time Captain,
now the manager of the line.

When that gallant mariner descended from his pilot house
to the main deck of the vessel after landing on the American
side on the })articular Sunday morning referred to in the last
chapter, little Grace Rathbone and her loquacious friend
Emily Ritter approached him. " Good morning captain, "
said Emily.

" Good morning, young ladies, good morning, " replied
the skipper with unctuous hospitality, "going over to Europe
with us?''

It may be well to explain that the Canadian side of the
river at this point is often facetiously called "Europe" by
both ferrymen and their patrons.

"No, we're not going across this morning, we simply
wanted to know whether young Mr. Rathbotie and his pony
and sleigh have crossed with you from the other side this

* ii

214

BOllDKU CANUCKS.

morning or not?'* and Miss Ritter's jaws paused for reply.

*' You know him when you see liim, don't you captain ?"
queried Grace.

•'Oh yes, miss, I know young Mr. Rathbone riglit well.
No, he hasn't crossed the river this morning, that I'm sure
of, because you see this being Sunday, we are the only bout
running up to this time this morning. "

"Then I suppose we'd better go back and loaf about
until he does come over, hadn't we Gracie?" suggested
Emily.

" Yes, I suppose that's the only thing we can do. "

" Mr. Rathbone crossed with me yesterday morning, "
observed the captain, " and I had some conservation with
him as he drove aboard on this side. He told me that he
was going up to the "Widow Martin's at Belle River to a
race. "

" Yes, that's where he went and he hasn't got back yet, "
replied Grace regretfully.

" I suppose he couldn't get away. Those French races
sometimes last till after dark, and if he stopped at the
widow's all night he will probably have started from there
to drive back along about eight o'clock, and if so he ought
to be along pretty soon now, " and then the genial mariner,
assuming a quizzical tone, continued, " but see here young
ladies, ain't this pretty early Sunday moiring to be looking
for your fellahs ?"

" We're not looking for our 'fellahs * captain, " exclaimed
the ready witted Emily. " This is Miss Gracie Rathbone and
shd is looking for her brother who crossed with you yes-

BOHDKU CANUCKS.

2lo

terday morning, " thid with such stress upon tlio brotlicr
as niatlo tlie sylphitlo's cliccks tingle.

" All, that's it, is it? Glad to know you ]Miss ll:ithbono, "
and the skipper touched liis cap gallantly. "I've ktiovvn
your father well on to thirty years now, and Mr. Hitter, his
partner too, I have known for very nearly ns long. "

"This is Miss Emily Rittcr, Mr. Hitter's daughter,"Haid
Grace, aihlre.s.sing the Captain as with her hands in her
pretty little muH she nodded her head at that young lady.

" Oh, I see, this is Miss Rittcr, ay ? Pleased to know you
miss, " and the captain again touching his cap politely con-
tinued, "Well then, we have the whole firm of RathboneA;
Ritter represented right here, haven't we?"

" Yes, captain, " replied Emily as she ground away at her
gum, " we represent the domestic interests of the firm of
Raihbone & Ritter on this occasion and I want you par-
ticularly to understand that the representative of the junior
partner hasn't got a ' fellah * and what's more isn't hanker-
ing after one either. "

"Ha, ha, ha, " laughed the skipper, "well that's a kind
o'remarkuble I must say. Why, a good-looking young
lady like you — "

•' Oh, you get out, captain !" interposed Miss Ritter with a
toss of her head, "none of your blarney — I know just how
good-looking I am. "

" Well then, how is it that you have'n't half a dozen
'fellahs* dangling after you?" demanded the captain
chalfingly.

" Because I don't want them."

216

BOKDEK CANUCKS.

" Ah^ yes, that must bo it ; but you mustn't take oHense
at what I say, Miss Ritter."

"Oh, I'm not oITonaea."

"That's right," remarked the skipper, approvingly. "You
see if we ferry-men weren't allowed to joke with our pas-
sengers sometimes, ours would be a very dull and monoto-
nous business."

"Yes, I suppose it would," assented the voluble one,
"and you can. joke with me whenever I cross with you —
pleased to have you."

"Well, now, since we've had our joke this morning,
come along and go over with us for a ride. You'll prob-
ably find Master Rathbone on the dock waiting to come
rtcross when we get over there."

"Well, what do you say, Grace, ' asked Emily, "shall
we go ? "

" Yes, thank you, captain," replied the sylphide demurely;
" 1 think it would be nice to go over when there's so much
ice in the river ; its so exciting."

"That's right, come right along, young ladies. I must
go back to my post in the pilot house now," and he turned
to move away.

"See here, captain!" cried Emilj^, jocularly, "wait a
moment; I want to tell you before you go that I guess I'm
the only girl on this boat this trip that hasn't got a ' fellah,' *"
and she motioned meaningly towards Grace.

" Oh, I twig ! " exclaimed the jolly ferry-man. " I think
I understand how the land lies now. Mr. Charley Ford
went up to Belle River with Mr. Rathboue yesterday, and I

BORlJEK CANUCKS.

217

suppose he'll be coming back with him this morning, won't
he?"

Poor little schemer ; how her face burned I ' *

" Yes," assented Miss Rittcr, with a twinkle in her eye
and a nod of her head, as she munched at her gum, *' that's
the calculation."

" Mr. Ford is a great friend of mine. Knew his father,
Gustavus Ford, well, too. I think Charley is about the
handsomest young man in the city — but I must get into
that pilot house and leave now. Good-bye for the present,
young ladies ; see you on the other side," and the master of
the Victoria rapidly ascended the stairway leading to the
pilot house.

And now the poor little schemer, with mingled feelings
of pride and shame, tremblingly said to the cruel Miss
Eitter: "Emily, I think you're just a real mean thing I
and the captain, with all his politeness, is an impudent old
fellow ! that's what he is !"

" Well, I like that !" exclaimed the other ; " what's struck
you. Miss Rathbone? Why, didn't you hear the captain
say that Charley Ford was the handsomest young man in
the city? How could you call him ao nipudent old fellow
after that?"

" Well, I don't care whnb he juid ; he's, an impudent old
thing!'' exclaimed the sylphidc sharply, with changing
color. "I don't see how it is th!it you are always down on
Charley Ford."

Because he's down upon me.

" • Our love is mutual, this wc know.' "

a '

•••

'■'

i*^.?

218

BORDEU CAXUCKS.

And Miss Rlttcr pioceedetl to hum the air of the song.

*' Well, then, I don't see why you should be constantly
introducing his name when there's no necessity for it."

"I am not constantly introducing his name !"

^' Yes, you are ! and I'm very sorry I asked you to come
— there now !" and the dainty little Grade's face was aflame
with tremulous anger.

" Well, so am I sorry you asked me to come on such an
expedition!" chewed out Miss Eitter with indifference as
they went to the side of the now moving steamer.

As the powerful vessel moved away from her wharf and
breasted the thickly frozen water field the girls gazed over
the railing at the receding ice over which with loud sound-
ing vibration they seemed to fly.

Further crimination and recrimination as to Mr. Charley
Ford was therefore put a stop to between them for the time
being.

CHAPTER XIII.

Jacobin Clocks and " Le ehemin de croia.^

rriHERE WAS a remarkable coincidence in the conduct
-^ of the two clocks ^hich marked the hours and regu-
lated the going and the coming, the rising and retiring at
the Widow Martin's tavern on the memorable Saturday
night of the particular ball involved in these chronicles at
that hospitable caravansary.

When the highly respectable-looking, old-fashioned,
heavy-weighted, long-pendulum gentleman, standing in the
southwest corner of the dining-hall ball room, who slowly
ticked Time's fleeting sands away, reached the twenty-
second hour plus the fortieth minute of the twenty-third
hour of that memorable day, a close observer might have
perceived that his hands had ceased to move and his ticks
had ceased to tick. "

While the square shaped, Sam Slick plebian party, who
scored time for the Avenger behind the bar counter, sus-
pended operations justpthree minutes later, or at exactly ten
forty -three P. M., to be accurate.

This, it is presumed in the case of the venerable and
vibrator}"-, albeit dignified and upright, gentleman in the
dining-hall ball room was due to a tender feeling of solici-
tude for him in his headlong, irrevocable career on the part
of a bevy of laughing, giggling girls, who hovered about
his tall, black-walnut frame at precisely the moment of his
cessation of business ; while the hourly and vulgarly reso-

(219)

1 1
t

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BORDER CANUCKS.

nant Sam Slick, perched amidst the bottles and decanters
on the shelves behind the bar counter, was induced to sus-
pend his occupation of second clipping by the accommodat-
ing and sympathetic barkeeper.

Meanwhile the only intermissions of varying lengths
between the dances were caused by the constantly recurring
desire for refreshment on the part of the band which
seemed, however, not perceptibly to influence his mental or
physical condition.

*' Mons. Duplessis, " said L j/ai^e Martin in French to him
on his return to the ball rooui \im. one of his periodic
foraging expeditions, " if you'll not go into the bar again
before supper I'll make you a nice present of something,
you'll see if I don't!"

"But when are we going to have supper ma chere Madam-
oiselle ? I'm sure it must be past twelve and 3fon Dieu ! but
I am hungry."

" What are you saying to the professor?" asked Charley
Ford, on whose arm Rosalie leaned — Mr. Ford's knowledge
of French was somewhat crude and imperfect

" Ah am telling heem " she explained in her pretty accent,
"dat eef he weel not go into de !5ar any more beefore
suppeur Ah weel mac heem a present of someting. "

" Yes Moses, and I'll give you a half a dollar if you'll not
take another drink before supper, " added Charley.

" Tank you, monsieur ! tank you ! but Mon Dieu I when
we wus goan have suppeur? Ah wus moss starve now!
Bah gosh I Ah wus hungray lac a peeg. "

" But you don't look hungry, " observed Charley as he
quizzically gazed upon Monsieur Duplessis' ungainly and

BORDER CANUCKS.

221

greasy proportions as he ascended to his perch on the dry
goods box in the southeast corner.

"Well, Ah feels hungray jews de sam, " grunted Moses,
" an tirstay too ! Ah'll toll you. Monsieur, dare wus nutting
lac play de feedle fur mac a mans hungray an tirstay bote at
de sam tam 1"

" Well, play a polka for us now and I guess supper will
not be very far off by the time you finish. Will it Miss
•Kose?"

" Oh, no, eet ees most near ready now. "

" Eh hien mes amis /" called out Mons. Duplessis as he
resumed his seat on the rostrum, " took yo pardneur fur a
polkay an afteur dat Ah guess we goan have sum suppeur,"
and as he leant over to take his fiddle out of its box he
oracularly continued, " eef you doan feed yo hoss he coo'nt
wuck! Eef you doan wine yo clock she's not go I an eef you
doan geeve yofeedleursumtingto heat an sumting for drink
he coo'n't feedell, dat's sure ting ! "

But when, after a due amount of discordant see-sawing in
the preliminary process of tuning up, Monsieur le Professeur
did commence the production of an antediluvian air with
resonant pedal taps upon the rostrum as an accompaniment,
the polka did not prove an especially huge success.

At least not to the extent an old-fashioned waltz or
quadrille or cotillion would have been with the heaux esprits
of the neighborhood.

Not more than four or five couples out of the large num-
ber present were on the floor at any one time during the
jiggy stuccatoand not always concordant measures of Mons.
Duplessis' fiddle and bow ; while the onlookers gazed upon

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BOllDEll CANUCKS.

these, if not with envious eyes, at least with askant air, as
if they felt they were being practiced upon by reason of
their lack of knowledge of fashionable metropolitan airs and
graces.

Hence it shortly came about that Madamoiselle Rosalie's
sense of the proprieties as assistant hostess on the occasion,
soon prompted her to forego the beguiling delight of being
swung about the room on the strong right arm of the grace-
ful and handsome Mr. Charley Ford ; and coming to a stand-
still for lack of breath near to the professor's rostrum, she
gave the latter to understar '^ that the polka might come to
a finale^ which was i.ccou.|jiished on the instant without
unnecessary flourish by the half famished and ever thirsty
band.

Jack Rathbone was not an enthusiastic lover of dancing
and, as has been said before, not an especial votary of the
tenderer sex of his own age.

He had danced twice with Blanche, Peter Bertrand's
pretty daughter, and once each with Rosalie Martin and
other girls, but he was more particularly attentive to the
widow, and in a spirit of badinage even went so far as to
assure that festive matron that he would like to try conclu-
sions with her in a two-handed reel, which only made her
laughingly say: "Oh, no. Monsieur Ratbone, Ah weel
nevaire dance no more aftaire dees. Ah have revenge ole
Crapaud bah beatin Pierro Bertrand to-night, an Ah am
well sateesfy."

"But wouldn't you like to revenge yourself upon me,
too, in the same way?" remonstrated Jack, quizically.

" What Ah want revenge meself on one of mah good fren

BORDER CANUCKS.

223

lao you wus, Monsieur Ratbone ? " queried the widow,
opening her pretty eyes to their widest and gazing upon
Jack smilingly.

" Why, because Peter has named the little chestnut after

me.

" Ila, ha, ha 1 " laughed the owner of Crapaud, " dat wus
good joke. Why, Monsieur Jack, de way Ah feel jews
now acose he have beat us today, Ah tink hees nam wus
de bess part ov de ponay. Oh, no, ole Crapaud have
reetire from de race beesness an hees meestress have reetire
from dancin. Why don't you go an got one ov dem
young gell standin bah de clock een decorneur ovaire dare,
Mons. Ratbone ? " and lowering her voice to a whisper she
bent her head over towards Jack's ear and said : " Ah kin
tell you one ting: dey wus all een love wit you!" and
squeezing Jack's arm with both hands, with many confirm-
atory nods of her head, she passed out into the kitchen to
look after preparations for supper.

But any little flattering episode of the evening like this,
or any of Jack's attempts at jollity, were pervaded by con-
stantly recurring thoughts of his return home on the
morrow. He was haunted by a premonition that something
unusual was in store for him against his return to the
parental roof; and while he was not physically one jot
afraid of any possible consequences that migiit accrue from
his presence there that evening, he was made morally
nervous whenever he contemplated the probable results of
his father's attacks upon his mother's comfort and happiness
in consequence of this surreptitious outing.

Ill the pauses of conversation with his various partners.

< V

224

BORDER CANUCKS.

'A,

commencing with Blanche Bertrand in the opening quad-
rille, throughout the night his thoughts would ever revert
back to this and he cannot be said to have enjoyed himself
unless it was when absorbed in listening to Peter Bertrand
and other elderly male guests talk horse and racing exper-
iences in the comfortable sitting room across the front
entrance hall from the bar.

Here assembled around the open chimney fire-place cer-
tain of the non-dancers of the occasion which, since the open-
ing of the two-hand reel, included Peter Bertrand, and, with a
number of other congenial spirits as well, no less a per-
sonage than Monsieur Badeeshow, the loquacious judicial
spokesman at the race during the ati cirnoon.

In the far corner of the room around a small unpainted
pine table lighted by a solitary, smoky, coal oil lamp sat
five undemonstrative and silent individuals absorbed in a
game of draw poker at " five-cent ante. " •

These consisted of the dapper and oleaginous little sweat-
board faker of the afternoon, the solemn, twinkle-eyed
Franco- Yankee, Wheel of Fortune man, a dark-eyed man of
sombre, swarthy feature, whom his familiars addressed as
" Denis, " (and the small faker as *' Mistoo Goathere, ") Mr.
Budd Doble, Junior, otherwise Dave, the driver of Crapaud
in the race, now keenly and soberly on the alert to retrieve
his losses on " dat leetle cbesnut plug's " victory, and last
but not by any means least, a bald headed party somewhat
below the medium height when he stood upon his feet, who
was addressed as " Faro " a nickname given him by his
intimates in signification of his partiality for games of
chance and who was understood to be the sportive pro-

BORDER CANUCKS.

225

prietor of the "Dew Drop Inn," a well known hostelry,
situated on the river bank down towards the city.

The latter was manifestly a man of serenely good humor,
who possessed the faculty to a marked degree of uttering
facetious observations in a mixture of French and English
jargon peculiarly his own.

Around the card players sat and stood a cordon of eager
lookers-on, who were even more silent than the players
themselves. The absorbed taciturnity of this far corner
made the not infrequently chaotic conversation of the sitters
at and around the table in the centre of the room, immedi-
ately before the fire-place, more conspicuous than it perhaps
otherwise would have been.

And thus above the din and discord of incoherent French
and English discussions there would periodically arise the
sonorous and authoritative colloquial strains of the rotund
Monsieur Badeeshow.

Flushed with the effects of good company and the fumes
of congenial beverages, that gentleman was now unbended
as far as his wonted jealous preservation of his dignity,
drunk or sober, would permit, and withal disposed to be
discursively oracular upon any subject included in the
repertory of his information which, apart from his knowl-
edge of the rules governing habitant horse races, chiefly cen-
tred itself in municipal politics.

With two grown-up sons at home to look after the farm,
he had long since become a man of leisure, and for the ten
years last past a perennial candidate for a seat in the coun-
cil of his native municipality.

He knew the history and apparent cost of every bridge,

226

BORDER CANUCKS.

ditch and culvert within the limits of the township in which
he lived, and was at any time eagerly prepared to join
issue with any one who might venture to dispute the wis-
dom of any of his votes in the council.

Much of the evening in the bar and sitting room had been
consumed by Councillor Badeeshow in an animated discus-
sion with several of his quondam supporters as to the judic-
iousness of his having leant his vote and influence towards
the expenditure of certain county moneys in the opening
of a certain new road.

In his own estimation Mr. B. had completely vindicated
his action in the premises, and now, redolent of victory and
many incidental drinks, he was prepared to talk horse, tell
a story or join in the chorus of U7i chanson de ramme.

"Ah, Monsieur Ratbone," he said benignly to Jack, as
that young gentleman edged up towards the fire-place in
sitting room, "Ah hopes you was anjye yoseff all raght,
monsieur."

" Oh, yes, thank you, Mr. Badeeshow, I'm getting on all
right"

" Come an took dees chair here, Monsieur Jack, and talk
wit Monsieur Badeeshow," exclaimed Peter Bertrand, as he
arose from his seat near the councillor.

*' Oh, no, no, Peter, " remonstrated Jack, " I'd prefer to
stand here with my back to the fire, thank you. "

" But weel you keep dees chair for me for wan meeneet,
see you please, " appealed the other. " Ah wants to go an
spoke wit mah dautteur, " and he handed the chair over to
Jack politely.

BOKDEll CANUCKS.

227

" All right then," said the latter, " I'll keep it until you
come back if you're not too long. "

"What you want goan see yo dautteur fo Pierro?"
demanded Mons. Badeeshow taking his long clay pipe out
of his mouth and gazing up towards the top of Mr. Bert-
rand's tall form, " Ah hopes you wus not goan spile heur
funl"

" Aw, no, Ah doan want spile heur fun mais Ah doan
want lose mah fun some udder tarn needer, " responded
Peter as he straightened himself up to his full height and
with both hands excavated his huge hunting case silver
watch from his fob pocket, and opening it, gazed upon its
veracious face, muttering to himself the while.

"What do you mean by losing your fun some other time,
Peter? " enquired Jack, settling himself in the chair along-
side Mons. Badeeshow.

" Well, you see," replied the owner of "dat leetle ches-
nut plug," as he restored his watch to its fob, "eet was jews
lac dees: De las tam Ah wus to a ball eet wus bout dees
tam las year, up to Stony Pint, on Sateurday night, too; an
Ah wus go dare fur chaperon an took care of mah dautteur,
jews de sam as Ah wus come here dees evening. Well, de
fokea at dat ball have stop all de clock on de house an
dance teel bout tree clock on de morning, an mah dautteur,
Blanche, have dance wit it. Eh hein! Ah have taught
nutting bout dat at de tam, an, een fac, Ah have nevaire
taught nutting bout dat teel Ah have go to de sacristy of
our church fur do mah Easter dooty lass spring. Den, par
example, de pries have mac me reecollec dat all raght, Ah'll
toll you I " and Mr. Bertrand again put into practice his

228

BORDER CANUCKS.

peculiar fashion of emphasizing his meaning by compress*
ing his lips firmly and solemnly, and slowly nodding his
head repeatedly.

" But the priest was not at the ball, was he, Peter? " asked
Jack.

" Aw, no, de pries wus not at de ball, fur sure," with a
smile at Jack's lack of sophistry.

" Well then how did he come to know what went on there
then Peter?"

" How deed de pries know what's go on at dat ball ?**
asked Mr. Bertrand in tones of withering pity for Jack's
ignorance of the cure's all-pervading knowledge of what
transpired in the parish, " why av course de pries know
every ting what's go on- on de/)arowstf."

" But you did not dance yourself, did you Peter ?" queried
Jack, " I remember that you told me that the two-hand
reel you had with Widow Martin this evening was the first
time you had danced in ten years."

" Yas, an dat wus a fac too, but you see de pries have
say dat Ah have do wuss dan eef Ah have dance on Sun-
day morning meseff! Ah have 'low mah eenocent chile
which Ah have go to dat ball een de cappasseetay of heur
faddeur an fur took care of heur to dance afteur twelve
o'clock Satuerday night an dat wus wuss dan eef Ah have
do dat meseff! An so, par cowsee^once," continued Mr. Bert-
rand authoritatively, as he pulled down his waistcoat and
brushed off the lappels of his frock coat with the palm of
his right hand, " Mon pere have say dat Ah wus rayspon'
sayble fur dot."

BOKDEU CANUCKS.

229

"Aw, yas, for sure you wus !" oracularly assented Mons.

Badeeshow with confirmatory nods of his partially bald

head, and a judicial air, "you wus raysponsible for dat an

'"lepose you have git i)ooty good beeg penncetannce too,

eni* Dee'nt you, Pierro? *

" Well, you could jews bet yo laf Ah have got beeg pen-
neetannce for dat! " exclaimed Peter, solemnly nodding his
head as he sidled towards the door. "Ah have crawl roun
de chuch on mah han an knee tree tam an raypate tree
chaplet at every station ! dat'a what wus mah penncetannce
fur leave mah dautteur dance afteur twelve o'clock on Sat-
eurday naght, an Ah wus not very ankshus fur do dat agin,
Ah'll toll yu! So Ah guess Ah goan do mah dooty di^cs
tam," and Mr. Bertrand bowed his Herculean frame through
+ door on his way to the dancing room to enjoin Blanche,
'aughter, from shaking her foot after twelve o'clock.

■%^\ |j

CHAPTER XIV.

A Little Theology and a "Pat Hand."

AS YOU Cattiiloeck, Monsieur Riitbone?"' asked
Mr. Biidcoshow of Jiick, after Peter's departure
from the sitting room.

"No, I go to tiie English Episcopal church."

"Aw, you WHS Aiigleech Pecscoi)al, ay? Well, Ah
have hcerd dat dat releejohn wus mo lac our chuch dan any
of de udder wan wus, aint ect?"

"Yea, I fancy what is known as tlie ritualistic or high
church section of the English Episcopalians are more like
Roman Catholics in their methods of worshi[) and observ-
ances generally than any other Protestant faith is."

" Den you wus divide mongst yousefT, ay ? "

"Yes, I don't think we all thirdv alike, and I know we
don't all say our prayers or worship God alike."

"An none of yous go to confess, ay? " queried Mr. Bad-
eeshow, lowering his voice to a stage whis[)er as he removed
his long clay pipe from his mouth and expectorated upon
the glowing log fire-place.

"No," replied Jack, " I don't think that even the high
church ritualists in our church have gotten as far as con-
fession yet."

"Well, Monsieur Ratbone, Ah goan toll you dees, an
Ah hopes you wus not goan be mad wit me when Ah'll
toll ycu," said Mr. Badeeshow, as he bended over to secure

(231)

I'!

232

BORDER CANUCKS.

the fire tongs to procure a coal from tbe fire to relight his
pipe with.

"No, no, Mr. Badeeshow," replied Jack, "I never get
mad with anybody because of his religious opinions."

" Well, den, Ah goan geef you mah opeenj'on bout dat,''
observed the obese councillor between vigorous draws at
his pipe as he pressed down the glowing coal on the top
thereof with the index finger of his right hand. "Wheres
an releejohn have no confesshun dey coon't have no raglit
kin of peneetannce, and suepose dey doan have no raght
kin of peneetannce an no confesshun dey coon't have no
deeceepleen mongstdem! An suepose dey doan have no
deeceepleen mongst dem dey coon't have no releejohn
wheres all de fokes tinks alike an do jews de sam tings wit
un esprit de corps an honhomie!^^ and further dropping into
French, with a shrug of his huge shoulders, he continued :
" Ce mon opinion ton jours mon tres cher ami / "

" Well perhaps you're right," complacently assented Jack,
"confession and penance may be well in the interest of dis-
cipline and consequent harmony of action in any given
church, and I have even sometimes had my doubts whether
or not it is not best that the church should think for the
people rather than that the people should think for the
church."

"Sartainly eet ees!" assented Mr. Badeeshow with
alacrity, taking the pipe out of his mouth, "you see eet ees
jews lac dees wit de protestans, every man wus fur heem-
sef an wus tink fur heemsef an every mans wus try to got
to heaven on hees own h(^ok I But wit us Cattaleeck eet wus
deeferent ting, par example I Eef we doan got to heaven

ai
wl
all
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BORDER CANUCKS.

233

-r

trough de chucli we cloan got dare at all. Eef we doan got
a teecat ou cairteefeccat from hour pries ou beesliop dare
wus no use fur try, we coo'nt got to de good plasse —
aldough sum ses we might possihlement got half ways dare!
Mais fur mah part Ahcoo'n't say nutting bout dat. Well,
how we wusgoan got dat teecat oi* cairteefeecat?" demanded
Mr. BaJeeshow forensically extending his fat hands, palms
upwards, and gazing at Jack benignantly. The latter,
however, seemed so utterly absorbed in the contemplation of
pictures in the fire that he made no answer. " "We muss go
to confess!" continued the councillor oracularly after a short
pause. "We muss do peneetance for our seen! We muss
faire le chemin de crois lac Pierro Bertrand have do ! We
muss be wortay of absolution! We muss took absolution!
We muss took de sacremaw ! An den suepose a mans wus
fur die right away queeck aftaire he have do all dat, well 1"
continued Mr. Badeeshow soliloquizingly contemplating
the fire, " Ah tink he would stan pootay good show fur be
a angel mongst de bless wans what wus een heaven! Dat's
what Ah tink fur mah part," and he arose from his seat
with satisfied mien and, approaching the fire, cast therein
from out his pipe the coal which had now amply served its
purpose.

Meanwhile the silent division in the far corner pursued
the fluctuating tenor of its way with that beguiling pre-
occupation peculiar to players of poker at "five-cent ante"
with frequently recurring "Jack Pots" as an important
feature thereof.

It was amazing how often the bejewelled little chuck-a-
luck faker with a rashness, not to say recklessness, rarely

234

BORDER CANUCKS.

Mr..'

manifested in one of his profession at games of chance^
would open these "Jack Pots " with. a bet of two dollars —
the highest limit of the game.

But these oft repeated efforts to capture the stakes more
frequently resulted in loss than gain to the opener and in
fact his efforts in this direction as a whole was a veritable
case of the biter bitten.

Mons. Goathere and the sportive proprietor of the Dew
Drop Inn would generally "stay in" with the opener and at
the come out, after the draw, "raise him out of his boots,"
as the dapper little man himself graphically expressed it.

"If this thing can only last long enough," observed the
Dew Drop's proprietor to Mons. Goathere in French, as the
latter deftly shuffled and dealt the cards, " we'll get that
diamond in his shirt front and that long watch chain. My
wife's been bothering me about getting her a diamond
lately, and I think that one would just suit her, if it's not
glass. I'll use the chain for hauling logs for the balance of
the winter, and in the spring I'll brush it up, buy a sweat-
board and follow the races with it to catch suckers with."

"See here, Faro !" exclaimed the individual alluded to,
"talk white!" This game is slick enough without back-
capping a fellow with that French lingo of yours."

"I wasn't sayin nutting bout de game," seriously replied
the proprietor of the Dew Drop; "I was only jews tellin
Denis bout some log I want to geet out of de bush dis
win tour."

" Well, talk logs in French some other time ; we're play-
ing poker in English now."

i !

BORDER CANUCKS.

235

Iplied

Itelliu
(lis

Iplay-

" Aw, yes, by jlminy, we air playin pokar, aint we ? But,
you see, Aii don't unstan Anglish verrah well."

"No, it's a pity about you," solemnly drawled the wbeel-
of-fortune man, upon whose lantern-jawed countenance
great beads of perspiration glistened in the lamp light.
" It's a pity the Ontario government didn't start an English
school in this ere French settlement! Ef poker was made
one of the subjects of instruction in that ere school and you
was an attendin' pew pill, I'd bet a ten-dollar bill to a roast
peanut that you'd know enough English by the end of the
fust month to beat the school master out of his year's salary !
How many chips did you shove up, Dave ? "

" Ah've got up twenty-fave cen bline," replied the driver
of Crapaud, upon whom, judging from the number of chips
and currency before him, Dame Fortune had, to some
extent, smiled.

"Well, David, I'll stay with the blind a spell, jest out
o' compliment to you."

"Tank you; tank you, Doc."

" An I'll do de sam, Dave, ' blandly observed the pro-
prietor of the Dew Drop, as he put up his ten chips. ' Ah'm
always stickin mah nose where I've got no business."

"I guess I'll give you a whirl at business myself this
time, my friend," insinuatingly remarked the knight of the
sweat board. "I'll just see the blind and raise it the limit
— a couple of cases."

" And I'll stay out of such rich company this time, I
guess," slowly and Jiesitatingly said Mr. Goathere, the
dealer, as he apparently reluctantly restored his cards to
the bottom of the pack he held in his left hand.

236

BORDER CANUCKS.

*' An Ah guess Ah goan jump hoff de fiel too," mum-
bled Dauveed to himself reflectively, as he finally ran his
cards over before throwing up his hand, "de compagnie ees
too fass fur dees picters Ah guess."

" So you didn't have em Dave, and couldn't stand the raise,
ay ?" reflectively drawled the long drawn faker. " Well !
I reckon your hand is as good as this ere one is," he con-
tinued as he slowly and deliberately ran his cards over,
" and I presume I orter to quit too — but by goll ! I won't,
though! I'll jess chance a two-dollar bill on the draw," and
he placed that sum in the centre of the table with the rest
of the stakes.

"It's all in de draw, ain't it Doc?" queried Faro as he
stealthily peeked at his hand.

" "Well sir, I ain't exactly settled on that pint; but I kin
say that 'draw' is this kind of poker's fust name. "

"Any how, Doctor, I guess I'll keep you company dis
time. I'm a little winner an kin lose two dollars just 'like
a chicken on de doe,' as ole John Curry use to say ; mine's
up, " and two dollars more were added to the pot before the
draw.

" How many cards do you want Doc ?" now demanded
Mr. Goathere of that eccentric speculator.
"Well, I guess I'll take one this time," doubtfully drawled
the latter as he held his cards between his hands high up,
leaning his elbows upon the table.

" Be sure an take all you want Doc," suggested the pro-
prietor of the Dew Drop.

"Thanks I Thanks, Mr. Faro! solemnly responded the

BORDER CANUCKS.

237

faker. "Thanks, sir! Small favors are always thankfully
received at this department."

" Comment voulez vous Faro ?" asked the dealer.

"Here now !" interpolated the cliuck-a-luck gentleman.
" None of that 1 Come off that dark language !"

"Well then how many cards do you want Faro?"
repeated the dealer with a suspicious twinkle in his bright
brown eyes.

" I tink I want two dis time ef I ain't making a fool of
meself an not drawin enough," observed the worthy pro-
prietor of the Dew Drop, as he discarded and coolly put his
right hand, containing the three cards he held up over the
two the dealer had just dealt him while with his left hand
he absorbedly proceeded to arrange the solitary, long lock
of blonde hair which, eminating from a point immediately
behind the right ear, was carefully plastered diagonally
across his hairless, oval pate until it reached a point near to
the lobe of the left ear when it became lost amidst a lan-
guishing growth of tow like fringe which ornamented the
base of a rather striking looking head.

In short, the tout ensemble of this facetious and hospitable
boniface's headpiece might have been likened unto that of
a typical mediaeval monk.

But this was as far as sacerdotal or monastic association
went with Faro's head.

Its inner organization would be found replete with utili-
tarian materialism (if such an expression may be permitted
for the occasion ), while the same was pervaded by an
ineffable sense of the ridiculous, and withal a quixotic
generosity.

I'l

•V:

238

BOBDEB CANUCKS.

" And how many cards do you want, my friend ? "
enquired the dealer, addressing the little sweat board faker.

" I guess I'll keep what I've got this time," was the mild
and unconcerned answer.

" Whew ! " exclaimed the wheel of fortune doctor ;
" you've got 'em bad this time, aint you, sonny ? Standin'
pat at this embarrassin stage of the game I "

"What kind of a game you givin* us now, stranger?"
asked the proprietor of the Dew Drop, as he cautiously
peeped at the two cards he had just drawn.

" I'm trying to give you back one of the bluffs you've run
me out several times with this evening.'*

" Well, all right, make your bets then, gents,** solemnly
interpolated the doctor. "It's my age and your first bet,
Mr. Dew Drop Inn."

" Very well ; I guess I goan chance a chip against the
pat hand."

"And I'll chance two dollars and a chip on the pat
hand," subduedly observed the little faker.

"Wall, now, that's corain' rather brash at a feller, aint it,
sonny?" queried the doctor, as he ruminatingly rolled his
quid of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other
and carefully ran his cards over again. " Hope that air pat
hand aint threwn your jedgment off its ke-base, sonny, old
boy ! '*

" Never you mind about my judgment," moodily observed
the dapper one, as he settled his face between his uplifted
hands, while he rested his elbows upon the table. "Go
right ahead and make your bet if you're going to. Fish or
cut bait ; put up or shut up | "

•-■ -r

BORDER CANUCKS.

239

"Fish or cut bait ; put up or shut up," solemnly repeated
the knight of fortune's wheel, as he preoccupiedly gazed at
his hand. " That's what this smart and gentlemanly little
sportin' sonny from the metropolis tells me I must do. Fish
or cut bait! Put up or shut up! I wonder what my
sonny friend takes me for? Jay Gould, Jim Keene or
some sich a pampered capitalist, I'll bet."

"Oh, go on, will you, and don't make such a damn fool
of yourself! " angrily exclaimed the holder of the pat hand.

" Well now, sonny, you have jest succeeded in com-
pellin' me to see your raise," drawled the doctor, with
imperturbable countenance, " and goin' you jest a leetle two
dollars better out of consarn for your politeness and
patience."

" Well, then, put your money up I " snapped the bejeweled
one.

" That's all right, sonny I Just you keep your shirt on,
please! I'll put my money up all right enough you bet!
Four dollars and a check ain't it ? and there it is right in
the pot. A monstrous pile to bet agin a pat hand in this
ere bass wood kind of a game, ain't it? And now Mr. Dew
Drop what air you going to do about it ?"

" What I goan do bout it ? Well, I ain't goan let you
ruin me on one hand if I kin help it, dat's sure ting! Let
me see what I got here !" and he cautiously and carefully
inspected the corners of his cards, which by holding in the
palm of his left hand he enveloped from the gaze of all on-
lookers. " Well, bah gosh !" he continued after a short
pause, " I'll be dang eef I doan stay too ! I'm always doin
some dam foolish ting anyways 1 I couldn't quit ahead

240

BORDER CANUCKS.

unless some one sets fire to de house right off ! Here's my
four dollars 1" and he recklessly shoved four silver dollars
up to the centre of the table as if he were desparately giving
them away.

" How about supper Dave ? Is the old woman going to
give us anything to eat to-night for our seventy -five cents?''
enquired Mr. Goathere of the driver of Crapaud.

"Aw, yas, Ah guess so. Ah nevaire see nobody go way
from dees house hungray yit. We goan got sum tuckey,
an goose, an shicken, an couchon de lait, an all what you want
presenlay, you see."

"Well, I'll see the raise in the meantime, " observed the
chuck-a-luck knight after a short pause, during which he
carefully and thoughtfully inspected his cards again. " I've
got to put up four dollars I reckon, haven't I?"

" That's precisely what you've got to do, sonny, to make
your word good," sepulchrally assented the doctor, " and
that," he continued, " is the amount to a knock down you've
jest put in the pot all far and squar and keerect as a axiom !
And now I presume you're countin' on me playin sucker
and stayin' in with you ! Well, by jehosaphat I but it
would be shockin mean to lose that ere six dollars and fifty-
five cents I've got in that ^re pot a'ready without a
struggle I My jedgement," he went on ruminatingly " says
stay out. Don't send good money after bad. While my
spunk says stay in, the Lord hates a coward I Well, I guess
spunk takes the cake most every time with this chicken —
specially when it doan take more'n two dollars extray to
stay into a sixteen-dollar pot ! So here's my two dollars
gents I Let her flicker !"

BORDER CANUCKS.

241

"You don't raise her den, Doc?" enquired the Dew
Drop's proprietor with affected indifference, mingled with
surprise.

"No, sir, I leave that fur you to do ef you've got the
gaul or the keerds to do it with. For my part I simply
calls," drawlingly assented the Doctor, simultaneously
exuding a huge splash of tobacco juice into a convenient
and capacious earthenware cuspidor.

" Well, den, by gosh, I guess I goan be just dang fool
enough to raise her meself I Here's my two dollars to make
it good, and here's the two-dollar raise I That's the kin of a
Frenchman I am, by golly 1"

" Well, I reckon you must have filled that hand of yours,"
remarked the small faker meditatively, " I have never
caught you making a drive or a bluff to-night and I have
watched you pretty close — but I must raise you on principle
this time, anyway ; here she is," and he added four dollars
to the pile of chips and money in the middle of the table,
making the amount approximate twenty-five dollars, or
thereabouts.

"He's a'stickin' to that 'ere pat I He's got 'em all right
enough, I should jedge," soliloquized the doctor in a voice
scarcely audible across the table. " I wonder what she
is ? " he queried to himself. " Ef she's a reasonable sized
flush, I'd stay; ef she's a moderate sized straight, I'd
still wrestle with the enemy; but ef she's a full of any
kind, why, I'd have to pause and think about it, and that's
what I'm a'doin' now," and again the earthenware cuspidor
was made the receptacle of a copious splash of tobacco juice,

242

liOUDEU CANLCKS.

while his cards were held in both hands outstretched on a
level with his face.

"Well, don't be all night making up your mind ! Play
cards 1" impatiently exclaimed he with the "pat hand."

"Keep your seat, sonny, keep your seat!" solemnly
enjoined the doctor, as he continued to absorbedly gii/o
upon his still uplifted cards; "your anxious bussum will
be chock full of anguish a'fore you git through with this
'ere hand, or I'm no proi)het ! "

"You're acting like a bloody fool just now, that's what I
know I "and the bejewelcd and dapper little man impa-
tiently turned in his scat half way around from the tabic,
resting his face upon the palm of his unoccupied hand,
with elbow on the table, while he watched his adversaries
from the corners of his eyes with a scowl upon his not
uncomely countenance.

"Well, now," preoccupiedly drawled the doctor, as he
continued to gaze upon his still uplifted hand of cards,
"that's rayther tough talk, I must say. Call a man a
'bloody fool all of a suddent like! Well, sonny, I aint a bit
annyed at you, but I'll jest make that 'ere honored titlr
good by stayin' with you another whirl for blood. The
Lord helps a fool and tem])ers the wined to the woollcsi-
sheep, or some sicli a matter ; I don't jess now recommcn
bar how the sayin' is worded — but here's my two dolhn
agin that 'ere pat hand and all comers, anyhow," and h'
slowly and deliberately placed a two-dollar bill on the fat
tening pile in the centre of the table.

"An' now it's my turn for some remarks, I guess," sa

BOIIDER CANUCKS.

243

the Dew Drop's boniface as ho peeked at the figures in the
corners of his cards.

'Leave the remarks to the doctor," suggested the holder
of the " pat liund '' ; " that's his best lioUl. You can bet or
draw out. It costs you four dollars to stay and nothing to
draw out"

"Nutting to draw out," meditatively repeated the Dew
Drop's landlord ; " nutting to draw out! \V(!ll, dat's cheap
enough, anyhow ; but de Lord hates a coward — aint dat
what you said jess now, Doc? "

" Kcercct as a axiom, sir. That's "what I said."

" Well, den, I guess I goan squander 'bout four dollars
more so's to show the French aint no coward."

"What do you mean? " asked the little faker, straight-
ening himself up to the table. " You raise it two dollars,
do you ? "

" Dat's -what I calcalate to do."

" Well, see here I " exclaimed the holder of the " pat
hand," " will you agree to set aside the two-dollar limit
rule and let me bet what I like ? "

" I suepose a man's always got a show for his money,
aint he?" '

" Why, to be sartainly he's got a show for liis money at
any stage of the game," drawled the doctor assuringly.

"Well, what do you say, Doc? Shall we bet outside
Ifee limit this once ? "

" Jest a^ you're a mind to, sonny. Anything for peace
ar i harmony is alius my motto."

" And do you agree, Faro ? "

" Well, I don't care if Doc doesn't. Jila's of course if

I f

♦ i

244

PORDER CANUCKS.

you oversize a man's pile he's got de right to call you for
what he's got, aint he ? "

" Of course he has," patronizingly replied the dapper one.

" "Well, den, go ahead and bet yo' bet."

" All right, I'll raise her fifty, then," said the holder of
the pat hand. " That'll be fifty-two dollars I've got to
put up."

" Yes, sonny, that's the amount you must bid adieu to,"
assented the wheel of fortune's proprietor, solemnly.

" Well, I'll run my chances on bidding adieu to it,"
replied the other banteringly, as he pulled the five twenty-
dollar gold pieces, referred to in a previous chapter, out of
his trousers* pocket and placing three of them on the pile
drew down eight dollars.

This was the largest bet of the evening.

The onlookers who encircled the table several tiers deep
were hushed into palpitating silence and spellbound with
overwhelming excitement.

The small faker was the cynosure of many an awe-
stricken eye, while the serio-comic wheel of fortune specu-
lator, as he demonstratively worked his jaws in the process
of tobacco chewing and gazed with wrapped absorption
upon his uplifted cards, presented a picture of those mingled
manifestations of failing confidence, doubt and regret, only
to be seen at a poker table.

" Well, sonny, said the latter slowly and solemnly, " ef
you think you're skeering this 'ere unsophisticated child of
nater by flashin* that 'ere gold at him, you're wrong!
You're way off! 'Taint me that's skeered, sonny; it's

BORDER CANUCKS.

2rt5

these 'ere keerds. They aint quite stout and robust enough
to stand the pressure."

"Well, lay them down, then," suggested Mr. Goathere,
the dealer; "Hand them over here."

"No, sir, I guess I'll jest keep *em whar they air for a
minute. They're terrible good lookers, though they can't
stand the raise. I pass, gents."

And now there was a whispered buzz of comment
throi-qhout the growing crowd of onlookers, some of whom,
accepting it as a foregone conclusion that the proprietor of
the Dew Drop inn would never call the raise of so large a
sum as fifty dollars, turned away in relief from the table.

Several of the more excited gave vent to their bottled-up
feelings by commenting admiringly in undertones upon the
pluck and sangfroid exhibited by the dapper little chuck-a-
luck operator.

This last raise, in the estimation of a large majority of
the lookers-on, would surely knock out the bald-headed
boniface. -

But in this they miscalculated.

" By gosh ! " he soliloquizingly exclaimed, going through
the form of again slyly inspecting his card'j, which he held
in the outstretched palm of his left hand. "I guess you
goan ruin me before you git trough. But I'll die like a
game Frenchman eef I've got to! " and laying down his
cards, backs upwards, he picked up th(* shabby, old pocket-
book, which lay on the table before him, and taking out the
notes it contained, he proceeded to carefully count them
over. This done, he deposited the entire sum upon the rest
of the pile in the middle of the table.

■'■I :.

246

BORDER CANUCKS.

" There, " lie said with a perceptible quiver of excitement
in his voice, " there is a hundred and fifty dollars 1 I raise
it a hundred I"

A considerable proportion of the gaping crowd became
absolutely frightened at this.

Never had they dreamed that the world contained such
recklessly extravagant idiots as these two players were
showing themselves to be.

One could have heard the proverbial pin drop — the only
audible voice in the room being the scarcely mellifluous
organ of Monsieur Badeeshow in the concluding sentences
of his theological dissertation for the benefit of Jack Rath-
bone, who sat beside him before the chimney fire-place
gazing intently a.id abstractedly thereupon.

When the orimilar councillor lapsed into silence the
suppressed excite nent at and about the players* table
became so apparent that Jack's attention was distracted
from the pictures in the fire and he and the voluble
municipal legislator, as if by tacit consent, arose from their
seats and joined the silently perturbed crowd by standing
on their tip toes on the outside edge thereof and craning
over the intervening heads in an effort to catch a glimpse of
what the cause of all the excitement at the table was.

The little faker, as if ta reassure himself of the strength of
his hand again stealthily peeked at the diminutive denomi-
nations imprinted upon the corners of his cards which he
cautiously held in his two hands joined together.

"You raise me one hundred dollars, do you?" he said
preoccupiedly intent upon his hand. "Then, I reckon,
you must have filled. Well, I can't help it if you have.

BORDER CANUCKS.

247

I'll try to call you if it busts me ! Here, I'll put up these
two twenty-dollar gold pieces and this pin, wliich is worth
three times the amount, for sixty, and call you, if it's the
last thing I ever do ! " and he unscrewed the solitaire from
his shirt front and laid it before him on the table.

" now much you say yo' pin is wurt ? '' enquired Faro,
taking it up and inspecting it closely.

"It cost me a hundred and seventy-five dollars; but, of
course, I reserve the privilege of redeeming it from you for
sixty."

" Well," observed the proprietor of the Dew Drop, lay-
ing the jewel back upon the table, " I'll take your word for
it and give you a show for your money."

'•It's a go, then?" .

*' Yes, she's a go."

" What have you got? It's your first show down ; I call

you."

" Four kings."

" Good hand if you've got 'em," assented the dapper little
man, seemingly altogether self-possessed and unruffled.

" Dare dey are," and the bald headed boniface turned
over his cards, which showed four kings and an ace.

"That beats four Jacks," obsevv* '' the faker. " It's your
money and sixty dollars in the pin. and, as he turned over
his cards displaying four knaves and a queen, he con-
tinued: "I'll tell you what I'll do with you, Faro. Give
me fifty dollars and you can have the pin cut and out."

" Well," replied the other, " I doan tink dare ever was
much hog bout me. Here's your fiftj^," and he pushed
back to the gamey little chuck-a-luck knight two of the

24S

BORDER CANUCKS.

latter's alienated twenty-dollar gold pieces and a ten-dollar
bill.

Then the crowd gave vent to its long suppressed feelings
by everybody's talking at the same time, and a chaos of
sounds was the result for a moment or so.

The widow entered the room at this juncture.

Elbowing her way through the crowd to the table, she
said in peremptory tones. " Now mah frens you muss not
play no more card tonight. Eet ees pass twelve o'clock an
Ah nevaire low no gamblin on dees house on Sunday!
Suppeur ees ready an you muss come an got sumting to eat
— dare wus no seen to eat on Sunday, you know."

*' Well misses," solemnly exclaimed the "Wheel of Fortune
Doctor, " that ere proposition hits my present complexion
both inwardly and outwardly to a knock down. You know,
madame," he continued deliberately, especially addressing
himself to the widow, " this ar poker game is a mighty inter-
estin amusement when it's played far and squar on the top
of the table — but it makes a man a kind ©'suspicious and
skeery when a party stands pat with four Jacks in his hand,
another feller holds up three kings and gets the other king
with a ace in the draw, and you yourself is obleeged to throw
down a ten full on fours jest as a matter of cautious
jedgement! I tell you misses thar's a heap of good jedge-
ment involved in playin agin a pat hand !"

To all of which the hospitable hostess only answered :
" Hoorah, come to suppeur ! come to suppeur 1 " and scur-
ried away back to the kitchen, from whence she had just
come.

■Mtl

CHAPTER XV.

Th« Supper —Peter Berirand's Toast and Monsieur Badeeafiow'a Reply.

rpHE PREDICTION of Mr. Budd Doble, junior, at the
-^ card table that no one should go away hungry was
arroly fulfilled.

The supper was partaken of in the spacious kitchen, with
its sanded floor and scrupulously bright and clean appoint-
ments.

Upon a table covered with fleckless cloths and capable
ot accommodating thirty at a sitting was spread "tuckey,"
" shickan'' and '^couchon de lait,^' together with a profusion
of pies, cakes and other concomitants more than sufficient
to satisfy the sharpened appetites of every one.

Wnen the ladies, waited upon by their escorts and gal-
lants, had partaken of coffee and whatever of substantials
they cared for, the men took possession of the table and
were indiscriminately waited upon by the ladies.

Peter Bertrand insisted upon supplying native wine for
all who chose to imbibe that inspiring beverage, in order
that he might be furnished an opportunity of proposing the
widow's health in a bumper, which he did in due course in
a surprisingly appropriate and dignified little speech in
French.

He said, among other polite things, that Madame Martin
had for years dispensed greater hospitality and contributed
more to the enjoyment of her neighbors than any other resi-

(849)

■Hin

250

BORDER CANUCKS.

dent in the community, and that her pluck and enterprise
■were the admiration of every one who had the pleasure of
knowing her. He felt certain that every one present would,
therefore, heartily join him in drinking her very good health
and wishing that she might long live to own as good a horse
as Crapaud and dance a reel in the manner she had shown
herself capable of by vanquishing liim, Peter, that evening
in the opening dance of one of the pleasantest reunions at
which it had ever been his lot to be present.

It goes without saying that this gallant toast was received
with three times three and a tiger. Even the little chuck-a-
luck faker, all bereft of much of his money and his sign
manual, his diamond solitaire, and barely understanding a
word of what Mons. Bertrand had said, was none the less
so impressed with the latter's dignity of delivery that he
was among the most vociferously demonstrative of approval.

The truth is, that Peter Bertrand, although unable to
sign his own name, when speaking his own language, pos-
sessed, in a marked degree, the quality of dignified and
even courtier-like utterance, so frequently met with in the
illiterate French Canadian habitant of the old school

This species of representative of le ancien regime of La
Nouvelle France was a common figure in the French settle-
ments on either bank of the Detroit river twenty-five or
thirty years ago ; but the contaminating influence of mod-
ern methods and pending social peculiarities have largely
robbed the present generation of descendants of a noble
race, in the districts referred to, of that charm, and easy,
self-possessed grace of manner which, by comparison, made

BORDER CANUCKS.

251

of an illiterate peasant a dignified courtier in the days
gone by.

When Peter's toast had been done rapturous justice to,
the widov;, knowing that Moiisiei r Badeeshow would be
sure to bo on the qui vive to make a speech, with ihoX^finesse
which so distinguished her, whispered a request to him that
he would kindly reply in her behalf.

This was the obese and loquacious councilor's oppor-
tunity, and slowly rising to his feet he began by peremp-
torily commanding order and then delivering an address in
English with unctuous and studied deliberation. He said:
"Genseemans an also de laday what wus on dees keetchan ;
Madame Martin hav ax me to mac rayply to de tose what
Monsieur Pierro Bertrand wus propose on faveur of he's
belt And so fur sac of mac compleemaw to dose gensee-
mans from de ceetay what coon't unstan hour lawngage
varrah well. Ah have mac it mah mine hup Ah wus goan
haddress you on Angleesh [hearl hear! and demonstrative
raps upon the table ] , acose bote lawngage wus de sam fur
me. [Owi, Oui, ce hien vrais."] On de conesye, where Ah
wus have de honneur fur be maumbaire fur more as sick
ear now, sometam we wus have two Frenchmans out of de
fahve of us maumbaire which was compose dat conesye,
[ Ho done Badeeshon ! Envoy fort ! ] an de ress of eet wus
Angleesh. [ Ce vrais I Ce la verity ! ] Bot sumtam she
wus de udder way. Sumtam we wus two Angleesh an tree
Frenchmans, an dat wus de way she wus now. [ Iloorah
pour le coyiseil ! Iloorah/] So you see, genseemans an de
layday what wus on dees keetchan, dat eet wus mah dootay
as wan ov dti maumbaire ov de conesye ov dees tonesheep

■U

\ '!

252

BORDER CANUCKS.

fur spoke it bote lawngage ; an Ah wus preffeclay certali
so long's Ah wus goan be maumbaire ov de conesye ov
dees mune e cee-pale-tay, Ah wus goan do mah dootay!"
[ Haorah ■pour Badeeshon, Envoy f(yrt bonhomie. ]
A general thumping upon the table followed this sally.

Pending these noisy demonstrations which were so far
unnecessarily prolonged as to take on a complexion of irony,
the councilor sipped from his glass of wine and dried his
exuding brow with a capacious bluoand white cotton hand-
kerchief. Continuing, he said: " What Monsieur Pierro
Bertrand have say bout Madame Martin wus preffeclay
correc, an lac Ah wus say beefour she have ax me fur tank
you an mac speech on heur faveur, an dat, genseemans an
de layday what wus on dees keetchen, wus what Ah wus
have grande playzeer fur do now. [Ecoutezf Ecoiitezf]
Fur mah part, Ah tink eef all de mans on Canayday have
de sam poosh an anteurprees bout it dat Madame Martin
have, de conetray wus goan got long fasser an have mo of
de prospareetay bout eet dat was baylong on de conetray
of Monsieur Eatbone an de udder genseeemans what wus
on dees house whose leef on de under side of de lac an de
riviere. [ Ecoutez I Ecoutez ! Bon pour vous Badeeshon ! ]
Genseemans an de layday what Ah have de honneur fur
haddress, Ah tank you agin fur de tose which Monsieur
Pierro Bertrand have propose on faveur of Madame, de
Widday Martin, an Ah hope we wus goan meet here on dees
hospeetabble keetchan sum udder tarn an anjye ourseff
jews de sam lac we have do dees evenin." [ Ecoutez 1 Ecoutez !
and wrapping upon the table. ]

"Bot, genseemans an de layday what Ah wus have de

BORDER CANUCKS.

253

grande playzeer fur haddress on dees occasion, on de meentam
she wus got pootay late now, an so, wit dees few raymark,
Ah weel say aurevotr an took mah seet."

And when tlie Falstaffiian councilor did resume his seat
the applause was so long and demonstrative that upon the
principle that extremes meet it became derisive.

Certain of the more hilarious younger men present were
especially uproarious, which, doubtless, was in a large
measure due to Mons. Badeeshow's well known propensity
for speechifying on the slightest provocation at all times
and places coupled with the fact that a prophet is rarely a
prophet in his " ain countree."

While this good-natured turmoil was at its height Peter
Bertrand left his seat at the head of the table and seeking
out his daughter Blanche, whom he found amidst a bevy of
mischievous girls about her own age standing near the door-
way leading to the dancing dining room, he enjoined her in
a kindly way to at once prepare for departure homewards.

This was the signal for a general stampede of the girls
upstairs to the widow's bedroom, where their wraps had been
left — while Peter returned to his place at the table as the
cries, ^^ Envoy done encore Badeeshon ! Envoy done! Yous
navez pas parlez assez / Encore / Encore /" were gradually
subsiding.

At all events, Peter once in his seat again, in view of its
being long past midniglit, found little difficulty in obtaining
the attention of the company to a few pertinent and well
chosen remarks on the propriety of bringing t' o evening's
fun to a close by thanking the widow and her daughter for

llit,!.

254

BORDER CANUCKS.

their bountiful hospitality and quietly dispersing for their
homes as rapidly as possible.

This suggestion very generally seemed to strike the elder
men present as a very proper one, and of course the younger
cavaliers were on the qui vive to escort their belles to their
respective habitations.

So, that within another half hour, after many hon soirs.
aurevoirs^ adieus, and much harmless badinage a>
each took their respective departure the goodly compatiy
had dispersed, leaving the widow, aided by her daughter
and the assistance of two female domestics, to gather up the
debris of the supper, wash the dishes, and generally put tlie
house in order.

The two fakers and the redoubtable proprietor of the Dew
Drop Inn sought accommodation for the remainder of the
night, or rather morning, at the near-by hostelry of Monsieur
Goathere, where, on their arrival before the race, they had
put up their respective horses and sleighs.

Jack Rathbone, Charley Ford, and the now thoroughly
gorged band were thus left the sole inmates of the household
apart from the busy members of the family, Mr. Budd
Doble, Junior, and the servants.

While the two young friends from the city sleepily waited
in the sitting room to be shown to their joint tall posted
feather bed in the room specially set aside for the accom-
modation of favored boarders and distinguished itinerant
guests, they endeavored to amuse and keep themselves
awake the while with Mons. Duplessis, who sat with legs
outstretched in a limp and lazy, owl-like way gazing upon
the slowly dying fire.

BORDER CANUCKS.

255

He was for the nonce manifestly surfeited with the good
things of this life, gastronomically speaking, and irresistably
inclined to take refuge in sleep.

He listlessly held between his teeth an ebony hued clay
pipe, dependent from the bowl of which was a diminutive
steel chain holding a tin cover for the same.

It was only now that the boys became fully alive to the
eccentricity of the professor's make-up.

He was habited in a smock or blouse of grey home-spun
with a belt of the same material about his rotund waist,
while his trousers, which were stuffed inside his cloth-
topped shoepacs fastened with " babeech " strings, were a
light shade of blue also of home manufactured material.

His neck was encircled with a conspicuous scarlet ker-
chief tied in a crude knot, which habitually appeared imme-
diately forward of his right ear, through which was pierced,
in common with its fellow-ear on the other side of his head,
a small gold ring.

"I tell you!" exclaimed Jack, "you were mighty mad
with the widow tonight, weren't you, professor ? "

"Well, yas. Ah wus pootay mad at de fust of eet," he
replied with sleepily drooping eyelids, as he took the pipe
out of his mouth and stuck it in his belt like a dagger, "bot
Ah have forgeeve heur acose she have beat Pierro Bertrand
een dat reel. When Ah have see heur do dat, bah gosh !
Ah wus sateesfy, an Ah've forgeeve heur."

"That's right, professor," chaffingly exclaimed Charley
Ford in approval, "to forgive is divine, you know."

"To forgeeve ees davvanne, ay? Aw, well, Ah suepose
so," slowly responded Mons. Duplessis, with drooping head

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and a shrug of his shoulders. " Mais Ah'll toll you, mon-
sieur, whenevaire Ah was feel up on mah eenside je,w8 lac
Ah wus now, Ah nevaire care nutting 'bout what's go on
on de houtside ov me/' and he raised his head for an
instant and smiled a ghastly, maudlin smile, as if in duty
bound, at the joke.

" What are you chiefly filled up with now, professor? "
asked Jack with an assumption of deference.

"Well, you see,'' he replied, with another sleepy shrug of
his round shoulders, " Ali've dreenk good deel ov hoisson
durin de day, mais Ah wus mossly feel up wit couchon de
lait jews at de presen lam."

"That's roast pig, isn't it?" enquired Charley.

" Ouij monsieur, Ah bleeve dat's de nam what he's have
on Angleesh," he observed, with a sleepy nod of approval.

"So you like roast pig, do you, professor? " asked Jack,
winking at Charley.

" Roas peeg I " exclaimed Monsieur Duplessis, with an
inane smile of enthusiasm, rousing himself up for the
moment, "you could bet yo laf Ah do, monsieur I Dare
wus nutting on de worl so good fur eat lac couchon de hit —
what's you calls roas peeg 1 Ah've eat so moch of dat at sup-
peur dat, bah gosh ! at de presen tam Ah wus feel jews lac
Ah wus peeg cleen trough bote heenside an houtside ov
meseff," and again the ghastly, sleepy, maudlin smile flitted
o'er the obese rubicund countenance.

" Well," exclaimed David, the driver, as he appeared at
the door with a lighted tallow dip in his hand at that
instant. "Dat's a fac ; you looks lac a peeg on de houtside
ov you fur sure, fur sure ! "

BORDER CANUCKS.

257

"Oil, go way, Dawveeil! (loan bockleur mcl" and Mon-
sieur Duplessis' chin fell upon his broad chest, apparently
as evidence of the first throes of a resounding slumber.

"Monsieur llatbone," said Dave, addressing Jack defer-
entially, "de misses an Rosalie wus beesay on de keetcluui,
an dcy toll me Ah wus to ci)me an show bote ov you to yo
bed, wheech wus now rcdday."

" All right Dave, we're ready too," and the two truants
arose and followed David upstairs to bed.

It was well on towards daylight when Madame Martin,
Rosalie and the others of the household retired, but when
they did do so the hospitable hosteliy had resumed its pris-
tine appearance of order and the famous widow's ball had
become a not unimportant or unsatisfactory item in the
somewhat eventful history thereof, ■' ,

,1 i'

'xi

i^<3

CHAPTER XVI.

Reactionary Reflections.

npHE DRIVE back to the city along the hordage of the
-^ frozen lake and river the following bright Sabbath
morning might have been a pleasantly exhilarating one to
the boyp, but for the inward ruminations of Ccvh of them,
albeit each of them were not in the same degree of mental
perturbation.

Charley Ford, whose widowed mother regarded him as
the summum bonum of filial perfection when she was pleased
with him, had unconsciously allowed her love to assume
the Platonic form of an exacting woman of her own son's
age, with, of course on occasion, all the sublime self-sacrific-
ing characteristics of a devoted mother's love. Ilence it
was that so long as there was no suspicion of another
•woman in the case, young or old, the loving intimacy 'twixt
mother and son was one of those divine manifestations of
our kind's better qualities, which goes far towards compen-
sating for our wretched normally inherent carnalism and its
subsequent disenchanting growth to selfish worldliness.

Yet, let there be another woman wnth a modicum of tan-
gibility appear upon the ^cene, and in nine cases out of ten
the divinity of such maternal love takes flight and leaves in
its stead the unnatural and unreasoning passion of a jealous
woman.

While this eccentric sort of motherly affection may be of
rare occurence in well regulated society, howbeit it is not

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without constantly existing exemplifica^n ; and where it
does exhibit itself it seldom fails of being a detriment rather
than a moral and material advantage to its filial object.

The tendency to harbor such a love for their sons on the
part of occasional mothers is no doubt largely the reason
why the average mother-in-law is proverbially held in such
real or Pickwiclvian disrepute.

Mrs. Ford, especially as to Charley, the eldest of her two
sons, was the kind of mother in question, and in her exact-
ing demands for explanations of what he had been doing
during his sometimes surreptitious absences from home ( as
on the present occasion ) had gotten to make liim frequently
feel a repugnance to going back to be subjected to the cate-
chism of questions he was sure to be.

How manj' an unfortunate has desperately plunged
deeper into the mire of misbehavior and s;u by prolonging
a spree or other truant delinquency, simply because of this
fear or repugnance to going home *' to face the music ! "

It would seem quite within the range of reason to assume
that if the prodigal son of old had not been reduced to corn
husks and pig swill as articles of daily diet, he'd never have
returned home at all to confront an outraged parent with
peccavi upon his lips, and thus have robbed succeeding gen-
erations of a didactic and exemplary story.

While, from a human philosophical point of view, it may
be a humiliating fact to contemplate, yet it none the less is
the fact that the vulgar and irrepressible stomach of man-
kind hasr greater stimulating influence for good or evil over
its actions than has the allegorical heart, about which poets
have continued to sing from time immemorial.

BORDER CANUCKS.

261

May it not be that your true poet when the divine
afflatus moves him is too much of a gentleman to call vulgar
things by their right names, and while he calls it beart
means stomach all the time ?

It was not however the condition of either Charley Ford's
heart or his stomach which disturbed his mental serenity as
the speedy little pony Bijou scurried him and his now silent
Jidus achates over the glib ice along the snow clad shore on
down towards the city.

As intimated before, it was the proppcetive maternal
catechism of explanations — the outcome of a jealous
solicitude -and the probable prevarication he thought he
should have to resort to to smooth things over when he
reached home that made him feel ill at ease.

Lie, however, felt that these objectionable qualms once
being swallowed, he had it within th(3 repertory of his
romantic resources to soothe the exacting and suspicious
maternal breast on his arrival at the Ford domicile.

But with Jack Rathbone it was different.

With that conscious stricken presentiment of the evil-doer
under given circumstances, in view of his father's latter-day
jealous and rigid treatment of him, he felt that he was
going back to a disturbed and unhappy household with his
poor, fondly devoted, little mother as the patient scape-goat
of his own inconsiderate, disobedient conduct.

Hence it was that as they swiftly approached the *erry
crossing to Detroit in moody silence the solitary male scion
of the house of Rathbone, in respect of his mental rumina-
tions, might have been likened unto a guilty culprit being
carried unresisting back to retributive justice.

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The steamer Victoria having Gracie and Emily on board
was just in the act of forcing her way through an accumu-
lated jam of thick ice to he: moorings as the pony slackened
speed at the eastern corner of the short decline leading to
the dock at Windsor. And it was rather a relief to Master
Jack's saturnine condition of mind to espy his pretty little
sister and his favorite girl friend, the daughter of iiis
father's junior business partner, leaning upon the railing at
the forward par., of the vessel, as with difficulty she crushed
her way to the landing.

Never a word had passed between the girls as they were
borne across the ice-clad river.

Miss Ritter silently munched away at her gum and gazed
absorbedly over the railing at the receding ice, over which
at times the steamer seemed to fly and then again at times
was forced to partially stop and do battle with — while
Gracie Rathboue, minus the gum-chewing— (an industry
she had learned to confine to home uses ) stood alongside
her and also contemplatively gazed down upon the receding
ice in a nervous and dissatisfied frame of mind.

She was annoyed with Emily — yes very much annoyed
indeed — because of the heartless manner in which she had
insinuated to that brusque, old captain that she, Gracie
Rathbone, was in love with Charley Ford.

She was quite certain she was not in love with Charley
Ford, nor had she ever thought of loving him.

Of course she liked Charley Ford as a friend ! Of course
she did, and she had always worn the plain little frosted old
gold ring he had given her as a philopena present now near
two years ago.

t marmmi m mimi'mm amm^n

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263

She did not see how any one could well help liking
Charley Ford as a friend — he was so nice and such a
cherished friend of dear old Jack's !

And then too what that rough old Captain had said was
quite true ! He was by far the handsomest young man in
Detroit ! In fact, Charley Ford was the best looking young
fellow she'd ever set eyes on in all her live-long life 1 And
how mean it was of Emily to dislike him as she made out
she did — call him a dude and say such wicked, sarcastic
things of him.

She was quite certain that if Emily ever repeated that
sort of thing in her presence she never'd have anything to
do with her again.

No, never, never! She was quite certain of that I

Why, the best assurance any one could have that Charley
Ford was just all right and a noble fellow was that he'd
always been so fast a friend and favorite of dear old Jack's.

Oh, my! what was going to become of Jack after this?

"Would her mamma be able to pave him from being
banished from home? She hoped and prayed she :Dight!

Oh, goodness ! how could she ever live without the com-
panionship of poor, dear, old Jack ? She was quite certain
that her papa would never allow Charley F )rd to come to
the house to see any of the rest of the family if Jack were
sent away.

And her heart bounded within her, and a great, gulping
sob came to her throat, as with tears glistening in her
pretty eyes she exclaimed, as the steamer neared the wharf,
"Oh, Emily, there they a;e coming down the hill now!
How fortunate we are, aren't we? "

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"Yes, very fortunate,'' chewed out Miss Ritter, indif-
erentlj.

"Look, how the steam rises from poor little Bijou,''
remarked Graeie, tremulously. "They must have driven
very fast."

" Yes, I see. Don't you think that if they had used the
same quantity of sieam they might have gotten home last
night and saved us tlie trouble of this charming exjxdition
to warn Jack that he's going to receive his quietus when he
gets home?"

"I never said he was going to receive anything of the
sort, Emily. I said that I knew that Papa was so annoyed
with him that I was afraid something dreadful wuld occur
when he gets home."

" Do you mean that he's going to be murdered ? " quer-
ried Miss Hitter, with provoking sangfroid^ as the steamer
gradually approached her landing place.

"No, Emily," she replied, with another great gulp of
nervous wretchedness, "I didn't tell you that Jack was
going to be murdered or anything of that sort — you know
I didn't! I told you that I was afraid that papa would
carry out his threat of sending him away from the hous^ —
banish him away from us, you know, at least for a time."

Poor little scheming sylphide ! It was only by a heroic
effort of self-control that she avoided completely breaking
down ; but the time for that was not yet.

" And I told you," replied the imperturbable Miss Ritter,
demonstratively munching away at her gum, " that I didn't
think being sent away to some other part of the world for a
time would at all hurt Jack." And then she added, after a

BORDER CANUCKS.

265

short pause, as if it were the outcome of an after-thought,
"But I really don't see how Charley Ford would ever get
on without Jack to tote him about the country."

"You're in eve of your hateful humors this morning,
Emily, and you're trying to make yourself as disagreeable
as you can."

After delivering this remonstrance in a trembling voice
she'rushed off the now landed boat and, child-like, gaining
the sleigh just as Jack had pulled up to await the debarka-
tion of another vehicle, she stepped upon the right-hand
side bar of the cutter, threw her arms around her brother's
neck and burst into a passion of tears.

" Why, Gracie dear," 'Exclaimed Jack as he dropped the
reins on the dashboard and encircling her fragile waist with
his right arm, kissed her burning cheek. "Wiiy, what can
the matter be, little one?

^ " Oh, Jack, I'm so glad you've come back ! We've all
been in such a way about you 1" sobbed the poor sylph
with her face partially hidden upon her brother's broad
chest '

" Why you didn't suppose I was never coming home
little sister, did you ?"

" No, no. Jack," with a shudder, "but I'm so afraid."

"What are you afraid of dear?" he asked with an in-
creasing premonition of probable breakers ahead.

To this question no answer came saving the outflow of
long pent up sobs.

Meanwhile her ungloved left hand with the frosted gold
band, on the third finger thereof lay prone upon Jack's left
shoulder.

I !

266

BORDER CANUCKS.

This thin, long-fingered, well-shaped little palm Charley
Ford took in both of his, and first kissing it, fondled it with
demonstrative sympathy, " Don't cry dear little Gracie," he
said soothingly ; " we've got back all right, you see. It
was very cruel of Jack to frighten you by remaining aw:iy
all night."

" No it wasn't," remonstratively shuddered the unfortunate
little schemer, as she withdrew her hand from her demon-
strative sympathizer, "Jack never could be cruel ! "

"There, dear, now," interposed her brother, "straighten
yourself up and don't cry any more; there's a good girl.
Everyone on the wharf is looking at us now, and they'll
think we're all daft if you go on in this way. There, dear,
there's a good girl ; straighten yourself up and dry your
eyes like a good little thing. You can sit in this seat along-
side of Charley while I get out and put the blanket over
Bijou. I'm afraid she'll catch cold if I don't cover her up."

And she did make a remarkably successful effort to com-
pose herself and pull herself together. For, Oh, what a
thrill of intense ecstacy had coursed through her veins
when Charley Ford had kissed her hand and called her
dear little Gracie I

How nice and kind it was of him to sympathize with her
in that way. And yet, her papa had compared him to
Jesse James I

For the moment she felt that she almost hated both her
papa and that enviously wicked Emily, who continued to
gaze at them with sardonic smile as she leaned over the rail-
ing of the steamer.

PORDKlt CANUCKS.

267

" There now, Gracie," said Jack soothingly, as he got out
of the sleigh and handed her into his seat, " don't cry any
more ; there's a good child.

" No, I sha'n't cry any more, Jack," she said tremblingly,
holding her handkerchief over her mouth, with swollen
eyes and a blanched face.

Jack had called her child. She was no longer a child
now.

She had suddenly become a woman, albeit a §omewhat
diminutive one of close upon fifteen summers.

:!! !?■

ii»:

CHAPTER XVII.

An International Love Scene.

\ FEW MOMENTS after, the pony and sleigh with its
-'^-^*- contents and Jack Rathbone were embarked aboard
the ferry steamer, she left her moorings and proceeded to
battle her way through the thick ice back to the American
side, while Miss Ritter continued to occupy her same place
at the railing.

" "Well, Emily, good morning," said Jack, approaching
her with extended hand, " I'm agreeably surprised to see
you here this morning."

"Are you?" retorted the junior partner's daughter, "I
must say that I'm rather confounded at finding myself here
here this morning."

" Why confounded, pray ?"

" Because, I feel for the moment as if I'd been on a wild
goose chase all morning and had just caught the goose."

** There you go with that irrepressible sarcasm of yours I"
said Jack laughing. *' That's a very effective way of
telling a fellow he's a goose, isn't it?"

"Well, don't you think 'a fellow' ought to feel like a
goose, with a big G?"

"Why, particularly for please?"

"For going to that French race and staying away all
night."

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WEBSTER, N.Y. H580

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BORDER CANUCKS.

"But we couldn't have driven down on the ice after
dark."

" But you could have driven down before dark, couldn't
you?"

" Not very well and seen the last of the race."

" I suppose there's some kind of a thoroughfare on the
land along the shore and you could have driven down on
that after dark, couldn't you ?"

"Yes, but the sleighing was not good. Still I'm free to
confess," he continued, "tliat if we'd wanted to very
badly, we might have come home last night."

" I thought so I Well, as I understand it from Grace your
expedition, taken as a whole, has completely knocked out
the senior partner."

Miss Eitter often referred to Mr. Rathboneas "the senior
partner," or "the head of the firm."

" And now, I suppose, grimly suggested Jack, " it will be
my turn to be knocked out when I get home."

" Well, I fail to see anything very especially criminal in
going to a French horse race," slowly and deliberately
replied Miss Bitter, "and if the head of the firm should
make it too unpleasant for you when you get back home
you just march down to our place and mother and I will
look after you until the storm is over."

"I'm very much obliged to you I'm sure, Emily," replied
the truant, smiling sadly, "but I sometimes despair of the
storm's ever being over with me in so far as the governor is
concerned. He seems to have taken an absolute aversion to
me of late."

"Well, you must only patiently grin and bear it, I

BORDER CANUCKS.

271

suppose. The old-fashioned church I belong to teaches that
one must bow to the will of one's parents, however exact-
ing they may be."

" Yes, that's all very fine, but when that will arises from
manifestly unnatural motives and is harsh and intolerant,
what is one to do ?"

" Still patiently grin and bear it," asserted Miss Bitter
with a confirmatory nod of her head, while she demonstra-
tively threshed away at her gum.

" I can only tell you that if I had had my own way about
it," continued Jack earnestly, "I should have left my
father's roof more than a year ago — in fact, I have often felt
a contempt for myself for stopping on as I have when I'm
quite able to earn my own livmg, at all events with my
hands, if not with my head."

" And what had you proposed doing? " asked the matter-
of-fact one.

" Emigrating to Montana, Oregon, New Mexico or some
other outlying territory and growing up with the country."

" And becoming a professional cowboy or something of
that sort, I suppose," she added.

"Perhaps so."

" A lofty, praiseworthy ambition I must say," sneered
Miss Ritter, "and what do you think would become of
your mother if you carried out that programme?"

" Well, poor little mother and I must part some day or
other, you know, Emily," and having thought himself into
the nervous condition of mind he had during the drive
down, there was a perceptible tremor in his voice, " but I
don't mind confessing to you — because I don't seem to mind

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telling you any sort of stupid thing about my excessively
egotistical self — that I shall feel very much like a ship
without a rudder when I cease to have my mother to go
back to each day. This may make me appear very
ridiculous and calfish in your eyes, Emily, but I hope you'll
not laugh at me for feeling as I do."

"Laugh at you Jack!" shedeprecatingly exclaimed, while
she ceased her gum-chewing, and her usually expressionless
pale blue eyes took an ineffably tender look as she gazed
into those of the truant youth, " I'm not in the habit of
laughing at the good I accidentally stumble upon in this
vale of tears," and she again resumed hei- }n-evious occu-
pation of leaning over the steamer's railing and gazing
intently upon the rapidly crumbling ice below,

"You must remember that I have scarcely shed my
swaddling coat yet, Emily," he observecl apologetically, as
he too leaned over the railing and lapsed into silence.

"Then my advice to you is,'' she remarked without look-
ing up, " that you'd better hang on to that coat as long as
you conveniently can, because the probabilities are that
you will never wear so becoming a garment again in after
life," and the gum-chewing industry was again resumed
with renewed vigor.

Meanwhile the sympathetic friendliness 'twixt the dainty
little sylphide and Charley Ford, seated in the sleigh, grew
on apace.

" You know, Gracie," said Charley, after Jack had gone
away to speak with Emily, " I have always been one of
your brother's nearest friends and greatest admirers, but I

BORDER CANUCKS.

273

don't think that I ever positively envied him before until
this n^orning."

"I can't see hov7 he is particularly to be envied this
morning of all others," she replied in a tremblings voice,
looking straight before her between the pony Bijou's ears.

" I suppose you have reference to the rumpus your father
has been probably making because of our going upon this
lamentable expedition ? "

"Yes, he's very much annoyed, indeed, and I'm so ter-
ribly afraid that something dreadful is going to happen —
something that will send Jack away from us for a long
time," and the tear-stamed little child-woman with difficulty
gulped down an involuntary sob.

"Oh, no, Gracie, I don't think you need feel like that,"
remonstrated Charley sympathetically, as he again took her
ungloved left hand in both of his and fondled it, "the
storm will soon blow over, you may depend upon it. Jack's
been guilty of nothing so very dreadful.'*

"I know that," asscated the little one with a shuddering
sigh, "but papa is so very exacting with Jack, and so very
determined, too."

"Ah, yes, I haVe reason to believe that he is all that ; it
certainly was not for any such reason that I said I especially
envied your brother this morning ; " and lowering his voice
to a confidential, lover-like whisper he continued: "I
envy Jack because he has such a dear, precious, little
woman as you are to sympathize with and love him ! "

"Well, I don't see how 1 could very well help Ic 'ng
such a brother as dear, old Jack is,'* inanely suggested the
sylph with a shiver, growing paler.

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"Yes, I'm very well aware that you couldn't help loving
Jack, because he is the dearest fellow in the woi Id, but I
must contradict myself by saying that while I envy your
brother in one way, I don't regret that I am not in his place
as your brother."

"Oh, I see, you wouldn't care to have a i^ister." she
replied, still looking straight before her — in turn growing
red. •

" No, you don't understand me. I should much prefer
to have a nice girl for a sister. 'Twoukl have been better
for we two boys, and mother's too often lonely life would
have been relieved of its loneliness by a daughter's compan-
ionship. The truth is, that I believe there*? always some-
thing wanting in a household without a daughter, and I'm
quite sure there's always something lacking in the life of a
growing boy or young man who is without the benign
influence of a pure minded, sensible sister. But what I
referred to was that I'd prefer not to have you for a sister."

"Thank you very much for the compliment, Mr. Ford,"
replied the trembling sylph, growing white.

" No, dear little one," he said in passionate lover's tones,
lowering his voice, " I shall henceforth pray that you shall
be something nearer to me than a sister; in other words,
that we may go into partnership in loving Jack — you as a
sister and I as a brother."

"Oh, Mr. Ford! " she exclaimed in a trembling under-
tone, with eyes cast down, " you should not say what you
don't a bit mean I "

"But I do mean it more than I ever meant anything
before in all my life I And, remember, Gracie dear, if

BORDER CANUCKS.

275

you'll charitably let me, I'm always to be your nearest
friend, Ciiarley, hereafter!" and the instinctive sense of
proprietary of this gushing little woman's heart, which had
for the first time vividly come to him within the last few
moments, gave him the only tingling throe of unadulterated
love he had ever thus far felt in all his li"fe.

Perhaps it would not be out of place here to observe of
him among our fellows upon whose soul has never flashed
this first uncontaminated ray of love's bright, young dream,
that he is much to be commiserated with, in that from
such an one has been withheld the most ecstatic thrill of
Platonic adoration possible to our combinedly ethereal and
fleshly natures.

Howbeit, since the cloven feet of vanity and vexation of
spirit are ever pattering along at least abreast of us, the
capacity to feel these ecstatic thrills is but too often diverted
into the earth earthiness of a common, every-day, vulgar,
materialistic passion, but too often, alas I bringing sorrow,
humiliation and all uncharitpbleness in its immediate train.

Let this be as it may, Charley Ford was for the nonce
made better for the sudden realization of his sometime
unconsciously growing love for the little girl beside him
and her reciprocal fondness for him.

He would now give his mother a truthful account of his
■whereabouts for the last twenty-four hours, notwithstanding
that oil the drive down he had sketched out within his own
mind a plausibly romantic tale of explanation to pour into
the maternal ear on his arrival home.

Yes, he would tell her the truth about his truant expedi-

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tion and promise her with a kiss that such a thing would
never occur again.

This, in his present couleur de rose frame of mind, he felt
would pacify and reassure her; and the probabilities are
that he was not far out in his reckoning when the time
came, an hour or so afterwards, to put his good resolution
into effect on the return from church of his devout mater
and younger brother to their comfortable home, to find him
already arrived there.

As the steamer neared the Detroit side Jack and Emily
left their places at the railing on the starboard side and
approached the sleigh.

"Why, what's the matter little puss?" asked Jack,
" you look as if you had heard something that very much
pleased you ! Has Charley been telling you of some of our
funny experiences at the widow's ball last night?"

" No, were you at a ball last night ?" she asked with
changing expression.

" Yes, of course we were — weren't we Charley ?"

"Good morning, Miss Emily," said Charley, cutting in
and smiling his most propitiatory and fascinating smile on
the junior partner's hopeful daughter.

" Good morning Chawley," responded Miss Ritter with
vibratory jaws. " I'll bet you had a good time dancing and
flirting with those pretty French girls last night, didn't you
Chawley?" • ^

Cruel, cruel Emily ! You surely never felt the first throes
of an ecstatic love!

" I suppose you address me as Chawley out of considera-
tion of the cud you're by nature compelled to be busy with,"

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rudely and bitterly suggested Mr. Ford, while at the same
time he gave Grade's hand a reassuring squeeze beneath the
wolf skin lap robe which caused that young person to laugh
outright at his bovine retort upon Emily's impertinence.

" Now, here, you two stop that," authoritatively interposed
Jack, *' you seem never to be able to meet without quarrel-
ing. I suppose it would be impossible for you both to
drive uptown in this sleigh at the same time?"

"Quite impossible," interpolated Miss Eitter.

"Or," continued Jack, "we might aZ? drive up together —
though it would perhaps be asking too much of poor Bijou
after her long drive this morning."

"Of course it would, poor little thing," exclaimed
Charley, as with a final squeeze of Gracie's hand beneath
the robe he got out of the sleigh, " I'd prefer to walk," and
the steamer having reached her dock, with an orthodox
lifting of his cap, and an obeisance specially directed
towards the glowing, albeit trembling little object of his first
genuine love, he proceeded to take his departure.

" I may have to come around and see you some time dur-
ing the day if I can get away, Charley," said Jack.

" All right old chap. You'll find me at home all the
afternoon," was the reply as he walked ashore with the
other foot passengers and thence up the street.

Thus it was that Jack and Gracie first drove Miss Ritter
home and then themselves proceeded homewards to the
Hathbone mansion.

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CHAPTER XVL

A Son of Erin.

\ ND SO IT came to pass, as hereinbefore related, that
■^■^- Mr. Robert Ratbbone, after a night and morning of
marital bull^ying and paternal fuming, betook himself to
church on this particular Sabbath morning, after an absence
therefrom extending over several moons.

If Jack, instead of being away upon the reprehensible
expedition he had stolen off upon, had been at home really
ill and unable to attend divine service, Mr. Rathbone's
comatose sense of duty to God and society would, in all
probability, have remained in its dormant condition, and
the luxuriously upholstered Rathbone pew at St. Pancras'
would siill have continued to know him not.

But the bete noir of his domestic contentment — not to say
happiness — having in this, his latest overt act of disobe-
dience, given him a propitious excuse for ridding the house-
hold of his objectionable presence, he, Mr. Rathbone, would
mark the event by demonstrating to his neighbors that he was
still with them as a church-going member of society, and to
the aforesaid hete noiVthat he, the latter, possessed a Christian
man for an outraged father.

When Jack, after dropping his excited little sister at the
front entrance of the mansion, drove Bijou around to the
stable he there found Micluiel, the groom-coachman at his
post of duty.

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"Well, Mnstlier Jack, Oi'm right playsed to say yo back
agin all safe an' sound, sor," exclaimed Micliael. "01 was
beginnin' to fare that somethiu'moighthave gan wrang wid
ye an' the pony, sor."

"Oh, no, Mike, we are all right. I was only persuaded
to stay over at Belle River last night much against my own
inclination."

" And how did the race come aff, sor."

•'Oh, the widow's old horse Crapaud was beaten all

hollow r

"D'ye tell me so, sor? Well, thin, ye surprise me whin ye
tell me that, sor, beca.se Oi taught thir was nary u thing .
over there beyant that could bate th' widday's Crapod on
the ice."

" Yes, and so did almost everybody else at the race yes-
terday before the horses started, but Peter Bertrand's little
chestnut is too much for him any day."

" Faith, thin, he must beagood wan, must that same little
chisnut, sor."

"Yes, you can depend upon it, he's a good one," assented
the truant, forgetting for the moment what was in all prob-
ability in store for him when he entered the house.

" And Mr. Bertrand, his owner, has named him after me,"
he added with a thrill of absurd pride.

" Afther yerself is it, sor?"

"Yes, he'll be known as 'Jack Rathbone' after this,
Mike."

" Well, thin, all Oi have to say t' that, sor, is that that
same chisnut pony could'n't have a betther or more gintle-
manly name, sor," observed this redoubtable votary of the

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blarney stone as he led the little mare out of the shafts of
tlie sleigli. "For that ray.-on," ho contiiiuod, "Oi'in right
well jdased tokiiaw that tlic laco cam' ail as it did, sor — but
sure Oi'iii tliinkin' the musther was in great ado about yer
stayiii' al' iiiglit away."

"IIcJV do you know he was, Mike?"

*' Why, didn't he cam* in here to the stable this mornin*,
an' fwhin he found the pony gan lie axed me fwidder Oi
knovved fwhere ye had >. int to, Masther John? "

"And did you tell hiM A'heie I'd gone?"

" Sorra bit o'me wonla do that, so*-, unless Oi was moighty
hard peched, sorl >.»o, no, sor^ iwhin the master axed me
fwhere ye'd gone away to. Oi towld him Oi'd not ba loikcly
to know fwhere ye had gan away to unless ye'd towld me
fwhere ye was goin' afore yc wint away."

"But I did tell you where I waa goir^ to before I went
away, Mike," remonstrated Jack.

" Av coorse Oi know ye did, sor; but, sure, the masther
wint away aff back into the house agin widout thinkiu' to
ax me fwidder ye had or no, sor."

"Well, well, Mike," exclaimed the truant, laughing,
"you're not an Irishman for nothing! That's worth a
dollar, and here it is for you, old chap."

"Thank ye, thank ye, yer honor," responded the recipient
of the large silver coin, "ye always do be givin' me some-
thing or another."

"Oh, Jack!" exclaimed Gracie, as she breathlessly
rubhed into the stable, "what do you think? Papa has
gone to church I "

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"Gone to church, has he? Then I hope it'll do him
good," he said bitterly. "And where is mother?"

" In the library," and, lowering her voice to f» whisper,
*' I don't think she's nearly as miserable as I expected to
find her."

" Well, I must go and try to make my peace with her
before the governor returns. Mike, take good care of
Bijou, because she's had a long and fast drive this
morning."

"Faith, an' ye can depind upon it, Oi'll do that same,
sor," called out Michael from the po- y's stall, as Jack and
bis dainty little sister left the stable on their way to the
house.

CHAPTER XVII.

A Devoted Mother and a Penitent Son.

; t

rrillERE ARE mothers and there are mothers in this
-^ fleeting vale of tears.

There are good mothers, indifferent mothers, and abso-
lutely bad, unnatural mothers; and the Topsj theory to the
contrary notwithstanding, it is an uncontrovertible fact that,
in view of the existing method of propagation of our
species, every man Jack and likewise Jill of us, must have
had a mother of some sort

It is also the.duty of every man Jack, and likewise Jill,-
of us to gratefully love our mothers. First, because they
underwent the pangs of bearing us, and secondly, because
an ordinarily well regulated mother is more prone to be
inspired by one of human nature's divinest laws to more
unselfishly love and cherish her offspring than that off-
spring in ever likely to receive at the hands of any other
woman in all his or her life long.

Yet there are society mothers who seemingly sacrifice the
natural promptings of this "divinest human law " at the
shrine of tluir real or fancied social obligations and treat
their children as disagreeable incumbrances, rather than as
blessings to be watched over and tenderly cared for.

Then there is the other extreme of mother — the middle
class drudge mother — who is never altogether happy unless

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she be sacrificing herself at the shrine of her children, and
who seldom ever thinks or 'alks upon any other subject

This last need not necesi^^rily be the personification of
amiability. She may be the veriest shrew, the veriest Joe
Gargery's wife in "Great Expectation " ( who, by the way, if
this deponent remenibers rightly, didn't have any children
at all saving the adopted Pip ) , yet she may be none the
less the typical drudge mother.

She may rule her offspring, figuratively speaking, with
a rod of iron, and literally with much of that purifying and
withal torturous commodity known to certain domestic fire-
sides and homes as birch ; howbeit there may be no end to
her devotion and Spartan like disposition to sacrifice her
health, strength and peace of mind for the good of her
children.

When, however, such a mother possesses an average
degree of every day patience and amiability in addition to
the other qualities mentioned, then may it be safe to assume
that such an one shall ultimately be of the Kingdom of
Heaven.

It is this maternal ideality who alone lends a complexion
of justification to the too frequently ill-timed and stupidly
maudlin sentimentality one is often made to listen to about
*' me mawthaw " in amateur circles, professional concerts,
and kindred entertainments.

However that may be, to get back to the thread of this
rhapsodical narrative, it is safe to say that little Mrs. Robert
Rathbone with her cultivated amiability and her patient
disposition to suffer all things for her children, and

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especially her only son, was a near approach to an ideal
mother.

When she heard Jack's footsteps approaching the little
library-sitting room in which she was, she arose to meet him
at the door. She tried to look sternly serious upon him for
an instant as he entered and took her in his arms and kissed
her again and again.

" Oh, mother dear," said the truant in a penitent voice as
he put his arm around her neck and gazed into her eyes.
"I'm so sorry that I should have caused you so much
uneasiness, and judging from how pale you look, unhap-
piness too. I suppose as usual father has been visiting his
wrath upon you because of my having gone away as I
did?"

All traces of stern seriousness had now fled from the
little mother's countenance and the one thing uppermost in
her mind for the moment was that this was in all probability
the last time in all their lives he would ever have a chance
of offending as he had. The death knell of his home boy-
hood had sounded and he was about to go forth among
strangers to be cared for by them until be became a man
with other ties than those of hers.

Their lives were about to be separated perhaps for good
and aye 1 Oh, that this time should have ever come ! Why
could he not have always remained her chubby faced, curly
headed, bright-eyed little boy darling ? I

A very foolish and unreasoning little woman was this
mother of Master Jack Rathbone.

" And where have you been ? " she asked with overflow-
ing eyes.

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"I was up at Belle River, mother."

" At a horse race, I suppose ? '*

" Yes, at a horse race."

" Well, now, Jack, you knew very well that your father
had forbidden your going to those sort of races without his
express permission."

"Yes, mother, I know that, and I alto know that he'd
forbid my doing anything he thought would give me
pleasure."

"No, no, he wouldn't, my son ! You wrong your father
when you say so ! "

*' Nq.1 don't, mother ; I know that he's taken the greatest
aversion to me, and that the sooner I get out of tliis house
for good, the better for all concerned. You know very
well that if it hadn't been for your urging me not to, I
should have gone away long ago."

"No, Jack," she said, resuming her seat before the fire-
place, " your father hasn't taken an aversion to you, at all ;
he simply thinks that you have been wasting valuable time
here at home, and lie wants you to go to some boarding
school or college for a year or so to finish your education
before you start out for yourself in the world." She was
very nearly breaking down here.

" When does he want me to go, mother ? "

" At once — before the end of this week."

Poor, fondly foolish, little mother ! The inflection of her
voice betrayed how near she was to bursting into tears.

"And which college does he want me to go to, mother
dear? " he asked, as he kuelt beside the little wom^in and

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287

took one of her hands lovingly in both of his, while he
gazed into her overflowing eyes.

" He leaves that entirely to you to choose, my son," she
replied, as she stroked his head caressingly.

"That's remarkably generous of him."

"Oh, yes, dear, your father has always been very gen-
erous in respect of your education, and I only fear that
you've not taken sufficient advantage of it," she said, as two
large tears tole down her drawn cheeks.

"Perhaps I haven't, mother; but I promise you here
upon my knees that I shall take proper advantage of this
opportunity to make np for lost time. What school or
college would you prefer that I should go to, mother dear? "

" I shouldn't like to offer any suggestion under the cir-
cumstances. I don't think I have any right to. Your
father expressly said that you were to be allowed to choose
for yourself." .

At this instant Gracie, bereft of her cap and wraps, came
bounding into the room.

" What is he to choose for himself, mamma? ** she asked.

"" A college, dear."

" Is he to go away to college ? " demanded the sylphide
with a grimace.

"Yes, dear, for a year or so. It is your father's very
sensible wish that he should before he starts out in life for
himself."

" Well then. Jack, I'll tell you what college I know that
Tnamma would prefer that you should go to."

"No, you mustn't do so, Gracie," mildly objected Mrs.

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Eathbone. "Let Jack choose for himself; it is your father's
Wish that he should."

But the sylphide, going to her brother, still in his kneel-
ing posture, and encircling his neck with her arms,
whispered in his ear.

"Well, then, that's the college I shall go to!" he said,
as after kissing his sister he arose to his feet and embraced
the little mater. "I can't be far wrong in choosing the
college the dearest mother in the world would prefer that I
should go to."

"That's the college Father Van was educated at, you
know, Jack," exclaimed Grace excitedly, " and, oh, he says
it's such a beautiful place with such lovely grounds about it,
and the teachers are so kind tc the scholars I I'm sure it
must be a very good school to have educated Father Van 1"

" I've no doubt it is," replied her brother, " and if you'll
go with me this afternoon, little one, we'll go and call upon
Father Van and have a talk with him about it"

"Of course I'll go with you. Jack," replied Oracle
excitedly, "you'll let me, won't you mama?"

" Yes, dear, I don't see any objection to your going," said
the little woman with a thrill of consolation growing out of
that Masonic-like esprit de corps peculiar to devout members
of. her ancient denomination.

Since she had to be separated from her idolized boy she
was convinced that he'd be carefully looked after at the
institution he had chosen because she knew a good deal
about its methods for the reason that two of her brothers
had been educated there in the days gone by.

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Thus it was that that afternoon Jack and Gracie called
upon Father Van and received from him a glowing account
of the beauties of the situation jast outside New York City
and the advantages of the curriculum of his Alma Mater.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

7%e Promised Valedictory Vtait.

XT WILL, therefore, now be understood, after this long
-*■ drawn-out interpolation, how it was that Jack Rath-
bone came to refer to his going to New York before the
close of the current week in conversation with Jacques
Laforge at the threshold of Rathboiie & Ritter's establish-
ment on the storm-threatened morning which marks the
outset of these desultory pages.

The storm had spent much of its force in wind, which
had veered around to the southeast, accompanied by a rise
in the temperature and a sort of rainy snow, which clung to
each object it fell upon, encrusting each tree and exposed
shrub for miles around with an alabaster-like coat of
ephemeral beauty.

So that when the sun shone forth on the following morn-
ing in all his refulgent midwinter glory the country-side
along the frozen river as far as the eye could reach pre-
sented an idealistic scene of hyperborean loveliness. Even
the dead and burnished rushes of the vast marsh, which
constituted the background to *'Mushrat" farm looking
westward, became white, coral-like sprays of beauty for the
time being, while under the influence of old Sol's dazzling
rays the leafless trees and shrubbery immediately surround-
ing the quaint, old dormer-windowed house glittered and
glistened in short-lived, brilliant splendor.

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If the outside of the Laforge habitation was thus radiant
of exceptional winter glory, the inside thereof was pervaded
by a mild undercurrent of excitement because of the
anticipated valedictory visit of "Monsieur Jack," which
Mons. Laforge had reported on his arrival home from the
city in the midst of the storm on the previous evening.

The large frame kitchen-living room was redolent of an
atmosphere of cheery warmth and savory odors.

One half of this apartment — that nearest the prim little
parlor, off which is a small bedroom designated by the
inmates of the household as " la chambre de Monsieur Jack " —
was covered with strips of homemade carpet, while the rear
portion occupied, by the large top-oven stovt, kitchen table,
and tall, red dresser with a liberal display of blue and white
delf dishes arranged in upright show thereon, was bare floor
of immaculate cleanliness.

Between the two windows looking to the eastward
stood a tall, old fashioned, lazily ticking, eight day clock,
hung up on one side of which was a florid print of our
Savior and on the other an equally crude picture of the
blessed Virgm with holy infant in arms.

Facing these on the opposite wall, over the old fashioned
flap-leaved dining table, was a large map-like illustration of
Goorge Washington encircled in chronological order by
vignettes of his successors down to General Grant ; and over
this, next the raftered ceiling, was a conspicuous black
wooden cross and white crucifix. At the window nearest
the southwest corner of the room stood an old-fashioned
hand-loom and alongside of this was a large sized spinning-
wheel, busy at which was Archange, the second daughter of

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the family — a lithe figured, straight featured, grey eyed,
brown haired, half grown girl.

Near to the window opposite, upon a high backed, rush
bottomed chair sat Marie, who though the elder of the two
was much the smaller. She had the old look common to
victims of spinal disorders, and an angelic expression, the
outcome of patient suffering and cheerful resignation about
her charming Madonna-like face, while her diminutive hands
and fingers moved with swift mechanical precision in the
braiding of straw.

Madame Laforge, a stout, good-natured looking, dark
complexioncd, middle aged woman was busy stuffing a
turkey at the kitchen table, while her two youngest born
were occupied in assaying to play jack-stones with sheep
knuckles on the carpeted portion of the floor in imitation of
their older brothers and sisters now gone to the French log
school house a mile and more away.

Jacques himself, assisted by Francois, his bright-eyed,
intelligent, eldest twelve year old son was busy fanning out
oats in the log barn across the yard.

"Mother, do you think that Monsieur Jack will come
this morning or will he wait till this afternoon?" asked
Marie, of course in French.

" I'm sure I don't know, my child. He may not come at
all to-day. Your father said that he might not be here until
to-morrow.

"Oh, I think he'll be here to-day," replied the little
invalid, intent upon her work. " Surely he'll take advantage
of this lovely day to come if he comes at all," and then
looking out of the window she exclaimed, " My, how lovely

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it is I It looks like a great white shining fairy hmJ out.side
this morning!"

"I feel it in my bones that MonHJour Jack will come
to-day," cried Arcliange as she gracefully moved back and
forth at the spinning wheel.

" Don't you feci it at your heart too, sistor dear," quizzic-
ally queried Marie, with a mischievous smile, turning to
glance at her sister.

" Well, I could'nt say for that," good-naturedly replied
Archange with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, "but I've
made a fire in the front room so as to give him a warm
reception in case he should, come."

"But you know, my dear," observed Madame Laforge
as she placed the now stuffed turkey in a dripping pan,
" Monsieur Jack never cares to sit in the front room. He
always prefers being out here in the kitchen because he says
it's so much more comfortable."

"And so I'm sure it must be," assented Marie, "but then
you know, mother dear, seeing that he's Archange's beau,
she may very naturally want to have some little private talk
of her own with him in the front room before he says good-
bye to the rest of us out here. I'm sure I should if he were
my beau."

" And I'm sure he's as much your bean as he is mine,"
cried the girl at tliespijining wheel. "In f;ict, lie always talks
to you more and pays you more attention than liedoes me."

"Well, it's very nice of you to say that he's as much my
beau as he is yours, sister mine — very nice and very gen-
erous of you, dear," she said with confirmatory nods of her
head, the while playfully smiling down upon her rapidly

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lengmening hraul ; "liut I don't think I slioukl.cnrc to go
into partnership with you in tlio possession of Monsieur
Jack as a beau. I shouUl be too jealous of v<i'i about my
half of liim. No, I'll only have to wait until my own
beautiful prince comes from behind the silver clouds in a
golden chariot drawn by snow white horses to euro my
back and dress me up in the purple and fine linen the cure
talks about. And hoMl make, Oh, such a beautiful lady of
mo that he won't be able to help asking me to marry him !
and he'll be such a beautiful prince that I won't be able to say
no! And then we'll be married by tlie bishop or, perhaps,
the pope himself in the presence of ever so many other
beautiful princes and princesses, and I'll be the envy of all
the girls for miles around! '' and the frail little figure shook
with a merry chuckle over her own pleasantry.

""Won't you have any one but princes and princesses at
your weddmg?" asked Archange, as she moved back and
forth.

"Oh, no!" she replied, shaking her head without looking
up, " that would never do, jou know ! "

"I suppose your beautiful prince won't let you invite
any of us to come, will he? " asked Archange seriously.

"Oh, yes, he will ! You see I'll first get him to make
father a king, and then, of course, you know, you children
will all be princes and princesses, because you'll all be the
sons and daughters of a king, you know. And mother will
be a queen with a lovely crown of gold and diamonds on
her head, and her dress will be all beautiful purple and fine
linen, and — "

"And what will be your dress? " interrupted her sister.

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" Purple and fine linen too, of course," with a confirma-
tory nod of the head.

" I should think you'd rather wear white satin at your
own wedding."

"Oh, no, I couldn't think of it ! " she said with affected
solemnity, gazing down upon her work ; " only common,
every-day brides wear white satin. Princesses are always
married in purple and fine linen, you know."

" I do believe that's Monsieur Jack's grey pony coming
down the road now 1 " exclaimed Madame Laforge, looking
out of the window.

" Let me see I " cried Archange, stopping her wheel and
rushing to the window. " Yes, that's he," she said con-
fidently.

*' Are you sure ? " asked the mother.

"Yes, I'm sure."

" Then I'm glad I've got the turkey ready to put in the
oven," and this the good woman proceeded to do without
further parley.

"Yes, and he's got a lady with him," continued
Archange, " I wonder who it can be ?"

"Why, who could it be but Madamoiselle Grace?"
demanded Madame Laforge, fussily putting more wood in
the stove.

" I hope it is 1" cried Marie, with difficulty getting out of
her tall backed chair and shambling over nearer to the
window to gaze out in' the direction of the approaching
visitors, " I'll be so glad to see her bright pretty face again I
It's more than three months since she was here last."

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Gracie Rathbone bad often accompanied Jack when the
weather was fine in the summer and autumn months down
to "Mushrat Farm " during the last two or three years.

In this way slie had gotten to know the family well and
to like talking to the crippled eldest daughter, and to romp
with the other Laforge children while Jack enjoyed a few
hours' shooting over the marshes.

Archange had become quite proficient in English and
spoke it very well, although, of course, with a very marked
but withal pretty accent, while Marie, owing to her constant
confinement to il^e house, heard it spoken but com-
paratively se.'dom and was therefore shy about attempting
to speak it.

Gracie Rathbone, on the other hand, was equally loath lo
talk French, notwithstanding that she understood it
tolerably well when she heard it spoken.

Thus it was that the dainty sylphide and her little crippled
admirer carried on their sometimes lengthened conversations
— the one speaking English and the other French.
• Mrs. Laforge herself always talked in her own native
patois to both Jack and Gracie, while her husband employed
his quaint English dialect as a means of communication
with any and every one on the slightest provocation. He
was rather proud of his linguistic accompl^hment in this
regard.

Ilence it was, that when the two distinguished and wel-
come guests had duly arrived and all were assembled in the
comfortable kitchen, the concord of sounds and intonations
of voices seemed for the nonce to satisfactorily dispose of
the Canadian dual language question.

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"I'm SO glad to see you again, Madamoiselle," said Marie
simply in French, after the sylphide had kissed her demon-
stratively, as she sat in her high-backed chair; "it seems
such a long tiine since you were here last."

" Let me see — I was here in September last, was I not,
Marie?"

" Yes, you were here on the 21st of September."

" More than four months ago, isn't it? Why, goodness !
I didn't think it was as long ago as that I Time flies,
doesn't it? You're looking very well, Marie, but your
father told Jack yesterday that you v -e threatened with a
very serious illness not long ago."

*' Oh, no, I was not so bad as poor father fancied I was.
You see, he frets so about me when I've the slightest thing
the matter with me, that I'm always made out worse than I
really am," and the Madonna-like face assumed a playfully
cheerful smile as she bended over for a fresh supply of
straw, a bright, clean bundle of which lay upon the floor
beside her chair. "We had just been talking about
princesses," she continued, " when we first saw you coming
in the distance, and I'm sure neither Archange nor I ever
fancied we should see one so soon, because, you know," she
said confidentialy, as she straightened herself up after having
secured the straw, "' in that beautiful fur jacket and cap and
that pretty dark-green dress, you are jnst what I think
princesses must look like."

"Now, now, Marie," replied Grace, playfully shaking a
a finger at her, "you know I don't like to be flattered or
made fun of, either."

"Oh, no I I never flatter or make fun of my dear

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BORDEH CANUCKS.

299

princesses," remonstrated the little invalid, with serio-comic
countenance", "although I sometimes feel it my duty to
tell them how beautiful they are."

At this juncture Jack, accompanied by Mons. Laforge
and his son and heir, Francois, came in from the stable,
whither they had been to put Bijou up for the two or three
hours the visitors were to remain,

Jacques was dressed in a homemade, blue-grey flannel
blouse and a light brownish pair of trousers, the boUonis of
which blended into cloth-topped shoepacs, tied around wiih
babeech strings.

"Aw, Mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, taking off the red
tuque he habitually wore at home as he went to shake
Gracie by the hand for the second time since her cotnirig,
' Ah'U toll you, we wus glad for see you on dees house
agin!"

" Not more so than I am to see you all again, I'm sure,
Mr. Laforge," replied the little city lady earnestly.

"Dat wus long tam you wus not here before," he said
politely. "Marie wus say de udder day dat she's fraid she's
not goan see you no more."

"Oh, there is no fear of that; I'll always come and see
Marie whenever I can. But now that Jack's going away,"
she added sadly, " I'm afraid I'll not have as many chances
to come as I had last summer."

"Bot yo bruddeur was goan come back agin sumtam or
uddeur, Ah suepose. Mademoiselle," remonstrated Jacques.
" Ah guess he's not goan lac dat collage so mouch he's
nevaire goan cum back home no more."

" Oh, no," she said laughing, " I don't suppose he'll like

I !;
,i li

I !;

800

BORDER CANUCKS.

it SO much as all that. He'll be back some time in July for
his holidays, I suppose — about five months from now."

" Aw, well, dat wus goan soon sleep roun, and you wus
goan come an see us den. Mais, Mademoiselle, you wus
goan stop an have sum deeneur wit us. You muss took off
yo cap an yo houtside coat. "

" Aw^ oui^pour le sure! " chorused Marie and her mother.

*' Archange, ma chere I " cried Jacques, addressing his sec-
ond-born, who stood watching and talking to Jack as he
stood at the table on the other side of the room emptying a
traveling bag of its contents.

^^ Comment, mon peref' she asked, facing around, her
bright grey eyes dancing with excitement.

" Took Mademoiselle on de udder room so's she's goan
took hoff hees cap an hovairecoat."

" Certainement, mon pere,'^ replied Archange with alaCrity,
going to Grace." Come wit me, mamselle Grace," she
said, taking the sylphide by the hand.

** Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle Ratbone ! " exclaimed Jacques,
as a connoisseur of peltries, no longer able to suppress his
admiration of the beautiful seal fur, "dat was beutafful
skeen you wus got on yo back ! Dare wus no mushratbout
dat, fur sure ! "

"No, Mr. Laforge, it's sealskin," explained the sylph.
" Papa's present to me at Christmas," she added as she went
off with Archans^e to the front room.

Meanwhile Jack brought delight to the brown eyed little
five year old girl, who stood upon a chair beside him, by
giving her a flaxen-haired doll with expressive blue eyes,
which opened and shut on occasion, and who possessed the

BORDER CANUCKS.

301

further unusual feminine accomplishment of squeaking
when she was squeezed.

The youngest of the family, whom Jack had previously
christened "Buster," a brawny gentleman of four summers
with bucolic predilictions, being seated on the table along-
side the Sunta Claus grip sack, was made to understand
that he had suddenly become a large landed proprietor with
vast herds of kine, the mere creatures of his will, by the
presentation of a toy barnyard.

"Monsieur Jack, you wus goan spile dem chile," sug-
gested Jacques, as he and his wife and Marie gazed upon
the delighted children.

"Oh, no, Santa Claus never spoils his children," was the
reply, as he handed a pair of skates to Francois, the eldest
boy, "You know Santa Claus sent you these skates,
Frank," continued Jack, " and he told me to tell you he's
sorry he was so late in getting around this year. He'll try
to be on time next Christmas."

To which Master Francois, looking up from his treasures
with radiantly incredulous countenance, replied: "Aw,
yas. Monsieur Jack, Ah knows who's dat Santa Claw wus !
Dat wus you, dat's who's he wus, an Ah tank you verrah
much. Monsieur. Dey wus jews de ting what Ah wus
want," and he went over to the far window to more closely
inspect his prize.

The Santa Claus grip-sack proved to contain something
appropriate for every one, and every one was made happy
and hilarious; and when, in due course, the table was laid
and the turkey, done to a proper brown, placed at the head
of the table for Jacques to stand up and carve, never did a

' I

i II

. I

302

BORDER CANUCKS.

jollier party partake of a tardy New Year's dinner in all the
country 'round.

Buster'seemed the only one present for the time being
at all concerned about the future and its prospective cares
and responsibilities. He felt it his duty several times to
get down off his high chair and go over to where he had
left his cattle grazing upon the carpet. First he was afraid
they might get out of their pasture and wander off and be
lost in the marshes ; and then it struck him that rag carpet
might perhaps be a poor substitute for grass, and he
demanded to know, in lisping patois, whether cows ever eat
turkey. " If so, he'd save some of his for his pretty cows.

Marie suggested that, although they were not partial to
turkey, she knew they were very fond of straw, and that he
might have some of hers to feed them with.

Happy thought I Straightway each animal had a clean,
bright straw laid before him for his dinner, and Buster's
mind was made sufficiently easy to enable him to return to
his chair at the table along-side his mother and renew his
attack upon the turkey.

Jack Rathbone looked forward to his going to college for
a couple of years with pleasurable satisfaction, and Grace's
regret that he v)as to go, found solace in the fact that it had
been arranged that she and her mother were to accompany
him to New York, and thence to the college to see that he
was made properly comfortable.

The sylphide did not altogether despair of seeing Charley
Ford occasionally during Jack's absence.

She was never held a prisoner at home, and although it
was not at all likely that Charley would be permitted to

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BORDER CANUCKS.

303

lad

|ley

it
to

come to the house to see her, she had to go back and forth
to the convent each day, and she didn't see why he couldn't
happen to meet her on the street sometimes. If she could
only get Marie alone for a little while she thought she'd
like to tell her that she was as good as engaged to Charley
Ford, because she knew that Marie would sympathize with
her and keep her secret. She certainly would tell her all
about it when she came down to the farm with Jack during
his next summer vacation.

And now the dinner being over. Jack had some talk with
Monsieur Laforge about his duck skiff and decoys which
were stored away in the Mushrat farm barn.

"At first I thought I'd get you to sell them for me,
Jock," he said, "but I've changed my mind. I don't sup-
pose they'd bring much, and I may find use for them when
I come back."

" Aw, yas, ov coorse. As Ah wus toll you yesteurday,
dey could stop where's dey wus on de barn teel you wants
dem. Suepose you does go on collage for two tree year, Ah
guess you wus goan come back sumtam, ay ? "

" Oh, yes, I'll be home for two months during the
summer."

" An Ah hopes," continued Jacques, " dat you wus not
goan got yo head feel hup with sich beeg larnin dat you
wus goan geeve up to shoot sumtam when we's got plantay
dock on de mash."

"Oh, no, I don't think there's much danger of that,"
said young Kathbone, laughing.

"Sumtam, you know," continued Jacques oracularly,
"too mouch larnin spiles fokes so dey wus do nutting cep

*r'

304

BORDER CANUCKS.

go 'round an tink how much dey knows more dan udder
fokes. Look mah ole fren Antoine BoisversI He have
peench heemsef fur geeve hees son good eddication. He
have sent heem to fuss class collage down on Kebec, an
now what wus de raysulte of dat ? "What he's do wit all
dat larnin ? Ah'U goan toll yo what he's do wit dat ! He's
feel hees head hup wit so mouch eddication dat he have no
more room on do top ov eet fur respec for hees faddeur an
hees muddeur, an he wus shame ov eet ! "
*' Ashamed of his own father and mother? "
" Yas, sair, he wus, sure's mah nam wus Jock Laforge I **
"Well, that's too bad I It's a case of « little learning
being a dangerous thing, isn't it ? ''

" Aw, yas, fur sure, eet ees dangeureuse ting fur know too
moucht" assented the owner of "Mushrat farm." "Ah
hope. Monsieur Jack, you nevaire wus goan larn so mouch
where's you wus go on dat collage dat you wus goan forgot
us po fokes on de Riviere Canard mash."

" Forget you, Jock, or any of the family ! " exclaimed
the youth impulsively, getting up and going over to shake
his habitant hunter friend by the hand. " Why, my dear
sir, some of the happiest hours of my life have been passed
with you and your family right here in this house ; and so
long as I live I shall never forget any of you or ever
cease to thank you for all the kindness you have shown

>»

"Oh, go long wit you. Monsieur Jack! Eet wus you
dat have be kine to us ! "

" Not to the extent you have been to me, old friend,"
replied Jack ; " but now we must be off, or it'll be dark

BORDER CANUCKS.

305

before we get back to the city, and mother will be worrying
about us. Gracie, get your things on, and Mr. Laforge and
I will go out and put the pony in the sleigh."

" No, no, Ah could do dat meseE You stay where's
you wus, Monsieur Jack."

But this Jack wouldn't hear of, and both went out to the
stable together

Thus, without further ado, amidst the tender adieus
which followed Bijou and the sleigh being brought to the
door for the start homewards, will this humble scribe, with
a profoundly respectful obeisance, set aside his stubby pencil
and lower the curtain on " Border Canucks : Our friendly
relations."

•|

THE EXD.

A FAULTLESS FIT GUARANTEED

BY OUR NEW YORK CITY CUTTER,

MR y. G. CAMPBELL,

5flJ. H. Plummep fit Go.

IMPORTERS OF

ENGLISH AND SCOTCH DRY GOODS,

8AULT 8TE. MARIE, ONTARIO.

BARTLETT & MA6D0NALD,

DIRECT IMPORTERS OF ALL KINDS OP

FANCY AND STAPLE DRESS FABRICS

Sandwich Street, WINDSOR, ONTARIO

(opposite DETROIT.)

Vh^ 3^ruTibell l]|oii6c.

E. RUNDELL, MANAQER.
SAULX SXE. MARIE,

MICHIQAN. ^

A delightful hotel, lighted by eleotrioity, and having
all other modern improvements.

Overlooking the Rapids, Government Park and Ship Canal.

$2.00 PER DAY.

ELLIOTT, GARLAND & CO.

8AULT 8TE. MARIE, ONT.

MERCHANT TAILORS,

DEALERS IN

SUPERIOR KINDS OF GENTS' FURNISHINGS, &c.

Gtnts' all wool garment* made to order ao per cent.

cheaper than on the American elde. .-^

O
PR

J. O. PKCK,

ICE Ready Made Clothier.

Gent'^ First-Class Furnishings.

Hats, Gaps, Etc.

The most complete establishment of the kind
in Western Ontario.

SANDWICH STREET, WINDSOR, (Opposite Detroit City.)

xliehigan Exchange

Sault Ste. Mariet Mich.

A First-class Hotel, charmingly situated within

stone's throw of the rapids and the

great ship canal.

RATES, $2.00 AND $3.00 PER DAY.

^"RANK ATWOOE), Manager.

V*J