We entered the cabin.
Never have I seen a place more exquisitely neat. The floor had not only
been washed clean; it had been scrubbed white. The walls of logs were
freshly whitewashed. The chairs were polished. The few ornaments were
new, and not at all dusty or dingy or tawdry. Several religious
pictures, a portrait of royalty, a lithographed advertisement of some
buggy, a photograph or so--and then just the fresh, wholesome
cleanliness of scrubbed pine. Madame made us welcome with smiles--a
faded, lean woman with a remnant of beauty peeping from her soft eyes,
but worn down to the first principles of pioneer bone and gristle by
toil, care, and the bearing of children. I spoke to her in French,
complimenting her on the appearance of the place. She was genuinely
pleased, saying in reply that one did one's possible, but that
children!--with an expressive pause.
Next we called for volunteers to show us to the great-grandfather. Our
elfish little girls at once offered, and went dancing off down the
trail like autumn leaves in a wind. Whether it was the Indian in them,
or the effects of environment, or merely our own imaginations, we both
had the same thought--that in these strange, taciturn, friendly,
smiling, pirouetting little creatures was some eerie, wild strain akin
to the woods and birds and animals. As they danced on ahead of us,
turning to throw us a delicious smile or a half-veiled roguish glance
of nascent coquetry, we seemed to swing into an orbit of experience
foreign to our own.
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