Baree, Son of Kazan by James Oliver Curwood

Author:James Oliver Curwood [Curwood, James Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-01-08T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVI

It was the beginning of August—the Flying-up Moon—when Pierrot returned from Lac Bain, and in three days more it would be the Willow’s seventeenth birthday. He brought back with him many things for Nepeese—ribbons for her hair, real shoes, which she wore at times like the two Englishwomen at Nelson House, and chief glory of all, some wonderful red cloth for a dress. In the three winters she had spent at the Mission these women had made much of Nepeese. They had taught her to sew as well as to spell and read and pray, and at times there came to the Willow a compelling desire to do as they did.

So for three days Nepeese worked hard on her new dress and on her birthday she stood before Pierrot in a fashion that took his breath away. She had piled her hair in great glowing masses and coils on the crown of her head, as Yvonne, the younger of the Englishwomen, had taught her, and in the rich jet of it had half buried a vivid sprig of the crimson fire-flower. Under this, and the glow in her eyes, and the red flush of her lips and cheeks came the wonderful red dress, fitted to the slim and sinuous beauty of her form—as the style had been two winters ago at Nelson House. And under the dress, which reached just below the knees—Nepeese had quite forgotten the proper length, or else her material had run out—came the coup de maître of her toilet, real stockings and the wonderful shoes with high heels! She was a vision before which the gods of the forests might have felt their hearts stop beating. Pierrot turned her round and round without a word, but smiling; but when she left him, followed by Baree, and limping a little in the tightness of her shoes, the smile faded from his face, leaving it cold and staring.

“Mon Dieu,” he whispered to himself in French, with a thought that was like a sharp stab at his heart, “she is not of her mother’s blood— non. It is French. She is—yes—like an angel.”

There was a change in Pierrot. During the three days of her dressmaking Nepeese had been quite too excited to notice this change, and Pierrot had tried to keep it from her. He had been away ten days on the trip to Lac Bain, and he brought back to Nepeese the joyous news that M’sieu McTaggart was very sick with pechipoo —the blood-poison—news that made the Willow clap her hands and laugh happily. But he knew that the Factor would get well, and that he would come again to their cabin on the Gray Loon. And when next time he came——

It was when he was thinking of this that his face grew cold and hard, and his eyes burned. And he was thinking of it on this her birthday, even as her laughter floated to him like a song. Dieu, in spite of her seventeen years, she was nothing but a child—a baby! She could not guess his horrible visions.

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