CHAPTER III
LITTLE MELISSE
The passing of Cummins' wife was as quiet as had been her coming. Withbare heads, their shaggy hair falling wildly about their faces, theirlips set tight to choke back their grief, the few at the post went, oneby one, into the little cabin, and gazed for the last time upon herface. There was but one sound other than the gentle tread of theirmoccasined feet, and that was a catching, sobbing moan that fell fromthe thick gray beard of Williams, the old factor.
After that they carried her to where a clearing had been cut in theedge of the forest; and at the foot of a giant spruce, toweringsentinel-like to the sky, they lowered her into the frozen earth.Gaspingly, Williams stumbled over the words on a ragged page that hadbeen torn from a Bible. The rough men who stood about him bowed theirwild heads upon their breasts, and sobs broke from them.
At last Williams stopped his reading, stretched his long arms above hishead, and cried chokingly:
"The great God keep Mees Cummins!"
As the earth fell, there came from the edge of the forest the low,sweet music of Jan Thoreau's violin. No man in all the world could havetold what he played, for it was the music of Jan's soul, wild andwhispering of the winds, sweetened by some strange inheritance that hadcome to him with the picture which he carried in his throbbing heart.
He played until only the tall spruce and John Cummins stood over thelone grave. When he stopped, the man turned to him, and they wenttogether to the little cabin where the woman had lived.
There was something new in the cabin now--a tiny, white, breathingthing over which an Indian woman watched. The boy stood beside JohnCummins, looking down upon it, and trembling.
"Ah," he whispered, his great eyes glowing. "It ees the LEETLE whiteangel!"
"It is the little Melisse," replied the man.
He dropped upon his knees, with his sad face close to the new life thatwas to take the place of the one that had just gone out. Jan feltsomething tugging in a strange way at his heart, and he, too, fell uponhis knees beside John Cummins in this first worship of the child.
From this hour of their first kneeling before the little life in thecabin, something sprang up between Jan Thoreau and John Cummins whichit would have been hard for man to break. Looking up after manymoments' contemplation of the little Melisse, Jan gazed straight intoCummins' face, and whispered softly the word which in Cree means"father." This was Jan's first word for Melisse.
When he looked back, the baby was wriggling and kicking as he had seentiny wolf-whelps wriggle and kick before their eyes were open. Hisbeautiful eyes laughed. As cautiously as if he were playing with hotiron, he reached out a thin hand, and when one of his fingers suddenlyfell upon something very soft and warm, he jerked it back as quickly asif he had been burned.
That night, when Jan picked up his violin to go back to Mukee's cabin,Cummins put his two big hands on the boy's shoulders and said:
"Jan, who are you, and where did you come from?"
Jan stretched his arm vaguely to the north.
"Jan Thoreau," he replied simply. "Thees is my violon. We come alonethrough the beeg snow."
Cummins stared as if he saw a wonderful picture in the boy's eyes. Hedropped his hands, and walked to the door. When they stood aloneoutside, he pointed up to the stars, and to the mist-like veil ofsilver light that the awakening aurora was spreading over the northernskies.
"Get your bearings, and tell me again where you came from, Jan!"
Unhesitatingly the boy pointed into the north.
"We starve seven day in the beeg snow. My violon keep the wolf off atnight."
"Look again, Jan! Didn't you come from there, or there, or there?"
Cummins turned slowly, facing first to the east and Hudson's Bay, thento the south, and lastly to the west. There was something more thancuriosity in the tense face that came back in staring inquiry to JanThoreau.
The boy hunched his shoulders, and his eyes flashed.
"It ees not lie that Jan Thoreau and hees violon come through the beegsnow," he replied softly. "It ees not lie!"
There was more than gentleness in John Cummins' touch now. Jan couldnot understand it, but he yielded to it, and went back into the cabin.There was more than friendship in Cummins' eyes when he placed hishands again upon the boy's shoulders, and Jan could not understand that.
"There is plenty of room here--now," said Cummins huskily. "Will youstay with the little Melisse and me?"
"With the leetle Melisse!" gasped the boy. Softly he sped to the tinycot and knelt beside it, his thin shoulders hunched over, his longblack hair shining lustrously in the lamp-glow, his breath coming inquick, sobbing happiness. "I--I--stay with the leetle white angel forever and ever!" he whispered, his words meant only for the unhearingears of the child. "Jan Thoreau will stay, yes--and hees violon! I giveit to you--and ze museek!"
He laid his precious violin across the foot of the cot.
The Honor of the Big Snows Page 3