CHAPTER XVIII

"AN' YE HAD BEEN WHERE I HAD BEEN"

We went back to Kaskaskia, Colonel Clark, Tom, and myself, and a great
weight was lifted from our hearts.

A peaceful autumn passed, and we were happy save when we thought of those
we had left at home. There is no space here to tell of many incidents.
Great chiefs who had not been to the council came hundreds of leagues
across wide rivers that they might see with their own eyes this man who
had made peace without gold, and these had to be amused and entertained.

The apples ripened, and were shaken to the ground by the winds. The good
Father Gibault, true to his promise, strove to teach me French. Indeed,
I picked up much of that language in my intercourse with the inhabitants
of Kaskaskia. How well I recall that simple life,--its dances, its
songs, and the games with the laughing boys and girls on the common! And
the good people were very kind to the orphan that dwelt with Colonel
Clark, the drummer boy of his regiment.

But winter brought forebodings. When the garden patches grew bare and
brown, and the bleak winds from across the Mississippi swept over the
common, untoward tidings came like water dripping from a roof, bit by
bit. And day by day Colonel Clark looked graver. The messengers he had
sent to Vincennes came not back, and the coureurs and traders from time
to time brought rumors of a British force gathering like a thundercloud
in the northeast. Monsieur Vigo himself, who had gone to Vincennes on
his own business, did not return. As for the inhabitants, some of them
who had once bowed to us with a smile now passed with faces averted.