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she had been a man she would have taken to navigation, and might have made herself famous by sailing to some unknown part of the New World. Being a woman, she took a lover who was going to New France, and for- got to weep when he found an early and vio- lent death. And there were others at hand, and Ninon sailed around the cold blue lakes, past Sault St. Marie, and made her way across the portages to the Mississippi, and so down to the sacred rock of St. Louis. That was a merry place. <a href="http://wk.putianb2b.com/"><strong>免费网赚 </strong></a> Ninon had fault to find neither with the wine nor the dances. They were all that one could have desired, and there was no limit to either of them. But still, after a time, even this grew tire- some to one of Ninon’s spirit, and she took the first opportunity to sail up the Missouri with a certain young trapper connected with the great fur company, and so found her- self at Cainsville, with the blue bluffs rising to the east of her, and the low white stretches of the river flats undulating down to where the sluggish stream wound its way southward capriciously. Ninon soon tired of her trapper. For one thing she found out that he was a coward. She saw him run once in a buffalo fight. That was when the Pawnee stood still with a blanket stretched wide in a gaudy square, and caught the head of the mad animal fairly in the tough fabric; his mustang’s legs trembled under him, but he did not move, — for a mustang is the soul of an Indian, and obeys each thought; the Indian himself felt his heart pounding at his ribs; but once with that garment fast over the baffled eyes of the struggling brute, the rest was only a matter of judicious knifethrusts. Ninon saw this. She rode past her lover, and snatched the twisted bullion cord from his hat that she had braided and put there, and that night she tied it on the hat of the Pawnee who had killed the buffalo. The Pawnees were rather proud of the episode, and as for the Frenchmen, they did not mind. The French have always been very adaptable in America. Ninon was universally popular. And so were her soups. Every man has his price. Father de Smet’s was the soups of A Mountain Woman 71 Mademoiselle Ninon. Fancy! If you have an educated palate and are obliged to eat the strong distillation of buffalo meat, cooked in a pot which has been wiped out with the greasy petticoat of a squaw! When Ninon came down from St. Louis she brought with her a great box containing neither clothes, furniture, nor trinkets, but something much more timberland outlet store wonderful! It was a marvellous compound- ing of spices and seasonings. The aromatic liquids she set before the enchanted men of the settlement bore no more relation to ordinary buffalo soup than Chateaubrand’s Indian maidens did to one of the Paw- nee girls, who slouched about the settlement with noxious tresses and sullen slavish coquetries. Father de Smet would not at any time have called Ninon a scarlet woman. But when he ate the dish of soup or tasted the hot corn-cakes that she invariably invited him to partake of as he passed her little house, he refrained with all the charity of a true Christian and an accomplished epicure from even thinking her such. And he re- membered the words of the Saviour, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.” To Father de Smet’s healthy nature nothing seemed more superfluous than sin. And he was averse to thinking that any committed deeds of which he need be ashamed. So it was his habit, especially if the day was pleasant and his own thoughts happy, to say to himself when he saw one of the wild young trappers leaving the cabin of Mademoiselle Ninon: “He has been for some of the good woman’s hot cakes,” till he grew quite to believe that the only attractions that the adroit Frenchwoman possessed were of a gastronomic nature. To tell the timberland pro seriess truth, the attractions of Made- moiselle Ninon were varied. To begin with, she was the only thing in that wilder- ness to suggest home. Ninon had a genius for home-making. Her cabin, in which she cooked, slept, ate, lived, had become a boudoir. The walls were hung with rare and beau- tiful skins; the very floor made rich with huge bear robes, their permeating odors subdued by heavy perfumes brought, like the spices, from St. Louis. The bed, in day- time, was a couch of beaver-skins; the fire- place had branching antlers above it, on which were hung some of the evidences of the fair Ninon’s coquetry, A Mountain Woman 72 such as silken scarves, of the sort the voyageurs from the far north wore; and necklaces made by the Indians of the Pacific coast and brought to Ninon by — but it is not polite to inquire into these matters. There were little moc- casins also, much decorated with porcupine- quills, one pair of which Father de Smet had brought from the Flathead nation, and presented to Ninon that time when she nursed him through a frightful run of fever. She would take no money for her patient services. “Father,” said she, gravely, when he offered it to her, “I am not myself virtuous. But I have the distinction of having pre- served the only virtuous creature in the settlement for further usefulness. Some- times, perhaps, you will pray for Ninon.” Father de Smet never forgot those prayers. These were wild times, mind you. No use to keep your skirts coldly clean if you wished to be of help. These men were sub- duing a continent. Their primitive qualities came out. Courage, endurance, sacrifice, suffering without complaint, friendship to the death, indomitable hatred, unfaltering hope, deep-seated greed, splendid gayety — it takes these things to subdue a conti- nent. Vice is also an incidental, — that is to say, what one calls vice timberland uk . This is because it is the custom to measure these men as if they were governed by the laws of civili- zation, where there is neither law nor civilization. This much is certain: <a href="http://wk.putianb2b.com/"><strong>兼职网 </strong></a> gentlemen cannot conquer a country. They tried gentlemen back in Virginia, and they died, partly from lack of ladies timberland boots intellect, but mostly from lack of energy. After the yeomen have fought the conquering fight, it is well enough to bring in gentlemen, who are sometimes clever lawmakers, and who look well on thrones or in presidential chairs. But to return to the winter of the small- pox. It was then that the priest and Ninon grew to know each other well. They be- came acquainted first in the cabin where four of the trappers lay tossing in delirium. The horrible smell of disease weighted the air. Outside wet snow fell continuously and the clouds seemed to rest only a few feet above the sullen bluffs. The room was bare of comforts, and very dirty. Ninon looked about with disgust. A Mountain Woman 73 “You pray,” said she to the priest, ” timberland boots and I will clean the room.” “Not so,” returned the broad-shouldered father, smilingly, “we will both clean the room.” Thus it came that they scrubbed the floor together, and made the chimney so that it would not smoke, and washed the blankets on the beds, and kept the wood- pile high. They also devised ventilators, and let in fresh air without exposing the patients. They had no medicine, but they continually rubbed the suffering men with bear’s grease. “It’s better than medicine,” said Ninon, after the tenth timberland jeans day, as, wan with watching, she held the cool hand of one of the recovering men in her own. “If we had had medicines we should have killed these men.” “You are a woman of remarkable sense,” said the holy father, who was eating a dish of corn-meal and milk that Ninon had just prepared, “and a woman also of Christian courage.” “Christian courage?” echoed Ninon; “do you think that is what you call it? I am not afraid, no, not I; but it is not Christian courage timberland boat shoes . You mistake in calling it that.” There were tears in her eyes. The priest saw them. “God lead you at last into peaceful ways,” said he, softly, lifting one hand in blessing. “Your vigil is ended. Go to your home and sleep. You know the value of the temporal life that God has given to man. In the hours of the night, Ninon, think of the value of eternal life, which it is also His to give.” Ninon stared at him a moment with a dawning horror in her eyes. Then she pointed to the table. “Whatever you do,” said timberland earthkeepers chukka she, “don’t forget the bear’s grease.” And she went out laughing. The priest did not pause to recommend her soul to further blessing. He obeyed her directions. March was wearing away tediously. The river was not yet open, and the belated boats with needed supplies were moored far down the river. Many of the reduced settlers were dependent on the meat the Indians brought them for sustenance. The mud made the roads almost impassable; for the frost lay in a solid bed six inches below the surface, and all above that was semi timberland pro seriess – liquid muck. Snow and rain alternated, and the frightful A Mountain Woman 74 disease did not cease its ravages. The priest got little sleep. Now he was at the bed of a little half-breed child, smoothing the straight black discount timberland boots locks from the narrow brow; now at the cot of some hulking trapper, who wept at the pain, but died finally with a grin of bravado on his lips; now in a foul tepee, where some grave Pawnee wrapped his mantle about him, and gazed with prophetic and unflinching eyes into the land of the hereafter. The little school that the priest started had been long since abandoned. It was only the preservation of life that one thought of in these days. And recklessness had made the men desperate. To the ravages of dis- ease were added horrible murders. Moral health is always low when physical health is so. Give a nation two winters of grippe, and it will have an epidemic of suicide. Give it starvation and small-pox, and it will have a contagion of murders. There are subtle laws underlying these things, <a href="http://wk.putianb2b.com/"><strong>网赚论坛 </strong></a> — laws which the physicians think they can explain; but they are mistaken. The reason is not so material as it seems. But spring was near in spite of falling snow and the dirty ice in the river. There was not even a flushing of the willow twigs to tell it by, nor a clearing of the leaden sky, — only the almanac. Yet all men were looking forward to it The trappers put in the feeble days of convalescence, making long rafts on which to pile the skins dried over winter timberland mens shoes , — a fine variety, worth all but their weight in gold. Money was easily got in those days; but there are circumstances under which money is valueless. Father de Smet thought of this the day before Easter, as he plunged through the mud of the winding street in his bearskin gaiters. cheap timberlands Stout were his legs, firm his lungs, as he turned to <a href="http://www.xinzhouba.com/view.php?id=2843"><strong>Coach Handbag Outlet for Cheap Coach Handbags - coach123 ...</strong></a> breathe in the west wind; clear his sharp and humorous eyes. He was going to the little chapel where the mission school had previously been held. Here was a rude pulpit, and back of it a much-disfigured virgin, dressed in turkey- red calico. Two cheap candles in their tin sticks guarded this figure, and beneath, on the floor, was spread an otter-skin of perfect beauty. The seats were of pine, without backs, and the wind whistled through the chinks between the logs. A Mountain Woman 75 Moreover, the place was dirty. Lenten service had been out of the question. The living had neither time nor strength to come to worship; and the dead were not given the honor of a burial from church in these times of terror. The priest looked about him in dismay, the place was so utterly forsaken; yet to let Easter go by without recognition was not to his liking. He had been the night before to every house in the settlement, bidding the people to come to devotions on Sunday morning. He knew that not one of them would refuse his invitation. There was no hero larger in the eyes of these unfortunates than the simple priest who walked among them with his unpretentious piety. The promises were given with whispered bless timberland boots uk – ings, and there were voices that broke in making them, and hands that shook with honest gratitude. The priest, remembering these things, and all the awful suffering of the winter, determined to make the ser- vice symbolic, indeed, of the resurrection and the life, — the annual resurrection and life that comes each year, a palpable miracle, to teach the dullest that God reigns. “How are you going to trim the altar?” cried a voice behind him. He turned, startled, and in the doorway stood Mademoiselle Ninon, her short skirt belted with a red silk scarf, — the token of some trapper, — her ankles protected with fringed leggins, her head covered with a beribboned hat of felt, such as the voyageurs wore. “Our devotions will be the only decora- tions we can hang on it. But gratitude is better than blossoms, and humanity more beautiful than green wreaths,” said the father, gently. It was a curious thing, and one that he had often noticed himself; he gave this woman — unworthy as she was — the best of his simple thoughts. Ninon tiptoed toward the priest with one finger coquettishly raised to insure secrecy. “You will never believe it,” she whis- pered, “no one would believe it! But the fact is, father, I have two lilies.” “Lilies,” cried the priest, incredulously, “two lilies?” “That’s what I say, father — two marvel- lously fair lilies with little sceptres of gold in them, and leaves as white as snow. The bulbs were
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