Jeanne liked the outside world better. She was not old enough for smiles and smirks or an interest in fine clothes. So when she said, "Come, Pani," the woman rose and followed.
"To the tree?" she asked as they halted a little.
The cottages were many of them framed in with vines and high pickets, and pear and apple orchards surrounded them, whose seed and, in some instances, cuttings had been brought from France; roses, too, whose ancestors had blossomed for kings and queens. Here and there was an oak turned ruddy, a hickory hanging out slender yellow leaves, or a maple flaunting a branch of wondrous scarlet. The people had learned to protect and defend themselves from murderous Indian raids, or in this vicinity the red men had proved more friendly.
Pierre De Ber came shambling along. He had grown rapidly and seemed loose jointed, but he had a kindly, honest face where ignorance really was simplicity.
"You fly over the ground, Jeanne!" he exclaimed out of breath. The day was very warm for September. "Here I have been trying to catch up to you--"
"Yes, Mam'selle, I am tired myself. Let us sit down somewhere and rest," said Pani.
"Just to this little hillock. Pani, it would make a hut with the clearing inside and the soft mosses. If you drew the branches of the trees together it would make thatching for the roof. One could live here."
"O Mam'selle,--the Indians!" cried Pierre.
Jeanne laughed. "The Indians are going farther and farther away. Now, Pani, sit down here. Then lean back against this tree. And now you may take a good long rest. I am going to talk to the chipmunks and the birds, and find flowers."
Pani drew up her knees, resting on her feet as a brace. The soft air had made her sleepy as well, and she closed her eyes.
"It is so beautiful," sighed Jeanne. "Something rises within me and I want to fly. I want to know what strange lands there are beyond the clouds. And over there, far, farther than one can think, is a big ocean no one has ever seen. It is on the map. And this way," inclining her head eastward, "is another. That is where you go to France."
"But I shall never go to France," said the literal youth. "I want to go up to Michilimackinac, and there is the great Lake Huron. That is enough for me. If the ocean is any bigger I do not want to see it."