V
_A BRIDE IN ST. LOUIS_
"An _Americaine_ bride, General Clark haf brought! She haf beeutifuleyes! She haf golden hair!" The Creole ladies were in a flutter.
"_Merci!_ She haf a carriage!" they cried, peeping from theirlattices. Governor Lewis himself had met the party at the shore, andnow in the first state coach St. Louis had ever seen, was drivingalong the Rue de l'Eglise to Auguste Chouteau's.
"_Merci!_ She haf maids enough!" whispered the gazers, as Rachel,Rhody, Chloe, Sarah, brought up the rear with their mistress'sbelongings. Then followed York, looking neither to the right nor theleft. He knew St. Louis was watching, and he delighted in the stir.
The fame of the beauty of General Clark's American bride spread likewild-fire. For months wherever she rode or walked admiring crowdsfollowed, eager to catch a glimpse of her face. Thickly swathed inveils, Julia concealed her features from the public gaze, but thatonly increased the interest.
"She shall haf a party, une grande reception," said Pierre Chouteau,and the demi-fortress was opened to a greater banquet than even at thereturn of Lewis and Clark.
Social St. Louis abandoned itself to gaiety. Dancing slippers were ata premium, and all the gay silks that ever came up from New Orleanswere refurbished with lace and jewels.
"They are beautiful women," said Julia that night. "I thought you toldme there were only Indians here."
Clark laughed. "Wait until you walk in the streets."
And sure enough, with the arrival of the beautiful Julia came alsocertain Sacs and Iowas who had been scalping settlers within theirborders. With bolted handcuffs and leg shackles they were shut up inthe old Spanish martello tower. From the Chouteau house Julia couldsee their cell windows covered with iron gratings and the guard pacingto and fro.
At the trial in the old Spanish garrison house on the hill the streetsswarmed with red warriors.
"How far away St. Louis is from civilisation," remarked Julia. "Weseem in the very heart of the Indian country."
"The Governor has organised the militia, and our good friend AugusteChouteau is their colonel," answered her husband, reassuringly.
"Why these fortifications, these bastions and stone towers?" inquiredJulia, as they walked along the Rue.
"They were built a long time ago for defences against the Indians. Infact my brother defended St. Louis once against an Indian raid."
"Tell me the story," cried Julia. And walking along the narrow streetsunder the honey-scented locusts, Clark told Julia of the fight andfright of 1780.
"And was that when the Spanish lady was here?"
"Yes."
"And what became of her finally?"
"She fled with the nuns to Cuba at the cession of New Orleans."
Trilliums red and white, anemones holding up their shell-pink cups,and in damp spots adder's tongues and delicate Dutchman's breeches,were thick around them as they walked down by the old Chouteau Pond.Primeval forests surrounded it, white-armed sycamores and thickets ofcrab-apple.
"This is the mill that makes bread for St. Louis. Everybody comes downto Chouteau's mill for flour. It is so small I am not surprised thatthey call St. Louis 'Pain Court'--'short of bread.' To-morrow thewasherwomen will be at the pond, boiling clothes in iron pots anddrying them on the hazel bushes."
As they came back in the flush of evening all St. Louis had moved outof doors. The wide galleries were filled with settees and tables andchairs, and the neighbourly Creoles were visiting one another, andgreeting the passers-by.
Sometimes the walk led over the hill to the Grand Prairie west oftown. The greensward waved in the breezes like a wheatfield in May.Cabanne's wind-mill could be seen in the distance across the prairienear the timber with its great wings fifty and sixty feet long flyingin the air like things of life.
Cabanne the Swiss had married Gratiot's daughter.
St. Louis weddings generally took place at Easter, so other brides andgrooms were walking there in those May days a hundred years ago. Nightand morning, as in Acadia, the rural population still went to and fromthe fields with their cattle and carts and old-style wheel ploughs.
In November Clark and his bride moved into the Rene Kiersereau cottageon the Rue Royale. The old French House of Rene Kiersereau dated backto the beginning of St. Louis. Built of heavy timbers and plasteredwith rubble and mortar, it bade fair still to withstand the wear andtear of generations. With a long low porch in front and rear, and afence of cedar pickets like a miniature stockade, it differed in norespect from the other modest cottages of St. Louis. Back of the houserushed the river; before it, locusts and lightning bugs flitted in thesummer garden. Beside the Kiersereau house Clark had his Indian officein the small stone store of Alexis Marie.
Into this little house almost daily came Meriwether Lewis, and everymoment that could be spared from pressing duties was engrossed in workon the journals of the expedition. Sometimes Julia brought her harpand sang. But into this home quiet were coming constant echoes of theIndian world.
"Settlers are encroaching on the Osage lands. We shall have trouble,"said Governor Lewis. Under an escort of a troop of cavalry Clark rodeout into the Indian country to make a treaty with the Osages. TheShawnees and Delawares had been invited to settle near St. Louis toact as a shield against the barbarous Osages. The Shawnees andDelawares were opening little farms and gardens near Cape Girardeau,building houses and trying to become civilised. But settlers had goneon around them into the Osage wilderness.
"I will establish a fort to regulate these difficulties," said theGeneral, and on his return Fort Osage was built.
"Settlers are encroaching on our lands," came the cry from Sacs,Foxes, and Iowas. Governor Lewis himself held a council with thediscontented tribes and established Fort Madison, the first UnitedStates post up the Mississippi.
But there were still Big White and his people not yet returned to theMandan country, and this was the most perplexing problem of all.