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Little French Mary
by
The Captain and his friends looked on with admiration.
“Give her a piece of candy–no, give it to me an’ I’ll give it to her,” said the Captain eagerly, reaching for his cane and leaving his chair with more than usual agility; and everybody looked on with intent while he took a striped stick of peppermint from the storekeeper and offered it gallantly. There was something in the way this favor was accepted that savored of the French court and made every man in the store a lover.
The child made a quaint bow before she reached out her hand with childish eagerness for the unexpected delight; then she stepped forward and kissed the Captain.
There was a murmur of delight at this charming courtesy; there was not a man who would not have liked to find some excuse for walking away with her, and there was a general sigh as she shut the door behind her and looked back through the glass with a parting smile.
“That’s little French Mary, Alexis’s little girl,” said the storekeeper, eager to proclaim his advantage of previous acquaintance. “She came here yesterday and did an errand for her mother as nice as a grown person could.”
“I never saw a little creatur’ with prettier ways,” said the Captain, blushing and tapping his cane on the floor.
This first appearance of the little foreigner on an April day was like the coming of a young queen to her kingdom. She reigned all summer over every heart in Dulham–there was not a face but wore its smiles when French Mary came down the street, not a mother who did not say to her children that she wished they had such pretty manners and kept their frocks as neat. The child danced and sang like a fairy, and condescended to all childish games, and yet, best of all for her friends, she seemed to see no difference between young and old. She sometimes followed Captain Weathers home, and discreetly dined or took tea with him and his housekeeper, an honored guest; on rainy days she might be found in the shoemaker’s shop or the blacksmith’s, as still as a mouse, and with eyes as bright and quick, watching them at their work; smiling much but speaking little, and teaching as much French as she learned English. To this day, in Dulham, people laugh and repeat her strange foreign words and phrases. Alexis, the father, was steady at his work of gardening and haying; Marie, the elder, his wife, washed and ironed and sewed and swept, and was a helper in many households; now and then on Sunday they set off early in the morning and walked to the manufacturing town whence they had come, to go to mass; at the end of the summer, when they felt prosperous, they sometimes hired a horse and wagon, and drove there with the child between them. Dulham village was the brighter and better for their presence, and the few old-fashioned houses that knew them treasured them, and French Mary reigned over her kingdom with no revolt or disaffection to the summer’s end. She seemed to fulfill all the duties of her childish life by some exquisite instinct and infallible sense of fitness and propriety.
One September morning, after the first frost, the Captain and his friends were sitting in the store with the door shut. The Captain was the last comer.
“I’ve got bad news,” he said, and they all turned toward him, apprehensive and forewarned.
“Alexis says he’s going right away” (regret was mingled with the joy of having a piece of news to tell). “Yes, Alexis is going away; he’s packing up now, and has spoke for Foster’s hay-cart to move his stuff to the railroad.”
“What makes him so foolish?” said Mr. Spooner.
“He says his folks expect him in Canada; he’s got an aunt livin’ there that owns a good house and farm, and she’s gettin’ old and wants to have him settled at home to take care of her.”