Indianapolis Times, Volume 35, Number 268, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 March 1923 — Page 8

8

Alice of Old Vincennes By Maurice Thompson COPYRIGHT. 19 08, BY ALICE LEE THOMPSON

ELGIN HERB ALICE, whom a Frenchman of Vin -eimes, GASPARb ROUSSILLON, had taken from the bered not how they came in possession of her. A locket she had always worn bore a family crest and the name TARLFTON LIEUT* FITZHUGH BEVERLEY, an American Army officer stationed at Vlnccnneduring the Revolutionary' War. who lev :d Alice, recognized the name as that cf an old Virginia family, and ho[cd some day to locste her people. Because of lack of rarrisoti. the rebel, CAPTAIN HELM, was forced to surrender Viroennea to the English, but when HAMILTON, their general, demanded the American flag Alice had taken down. It could not be found. Gaepard Roussillon took advantage of the first opportunity to give Hamilton a stunning blow a’ and t-sean .1 ir An Insulting remark from an Irish corporal under w hom RENE DE RO'v.l.LE, a Frenchman, was working goaded him to kill the man and flee. Rene's fiance. ANDRIENNE BOURCTER. tearfully discussed the matted with Alice and on her way home was encountered by an Englishman. CAPTAIN FARNSWORTH, In a drunken mood.

F VTHER BERET hurried to the spot, and when in the deepening gloom he saw Adrienne flinging herself violently this way and that. helplessly trying to escape from the clasp of a man, he did to perfection what a priest is supposed to be the least fitted to do. Indeed, considering his age and leaving his vocation out of the reckoning, his performance was amazing. It Is not certain that the blow dealt upon Governor Hamilton's jaw by M. Roussillon was a stiffer one than that sent straight from the priest’s shoulder right into the short ribs of Captain Farnsworth, who there upon released a mighty grunt and doubled himself up. Adrienne recognized her assailant at the first and used his name freely during the struggle. When Father Beret appeared -he cried out to him — "Oh. Father—Father Beret! help me! help me!” When Farnsworth recovered from the breath-expelling shock of the jab In his side and got himself once more In a vertical position, both girl and priest were gone. He looked this way er.d that, rapidly becoming sober, and beginning to wonder how the thing could have happened so easily. His ribs felt as if they had been hit with a heavy hammer. "By Jove!” he muttered all to him self, "the old prayer-singing heathen! By Jove!” And with this very brilliant and relevant observation he rubbed his sore side and went his way to the fort. CHAPTER XI WE hear much about the "days that tried men’s souls:’’ but what about the souls of women In those same days? Sittine in the liberal geniality of the nineteenth century’s sunset glow, we insist upon having our grumble at the times and the manners of our generation; but if we had to exchange places, periods and experiences with the people who lived in America through the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there would be good ground for despairing uluiations. And if our men could not bear it. if it would try their souls too poignantly, let us Imagine the effect upon our women. No, let us not Imagine it: but rather let us give full credit to the heroic souls of the mothers and the maidens who did actually bear up in the center of that terrible struggle and unflinchingly help win for us not only freedom, but the vast empire which at this moment is at once the master of the world and the model toward which all the nations of the earth are slowly, but surely tending If Alice was an extraordinary girl, she was not aware of it: nor had she ever understood that her life was being shaped by extraordinary conditions. Os course It could not but be plain to her that she knew more and felt more than the giris of her narrow acquaintance: that her accomplishments were greater: that she nursed splendid dreams of whicli they could have no proper comprehension, but until now she had never even dimly realized that she was probably capable of being something more than a mere creole lass, the foster daughter of Gaspard Roussillon, trader in pelts and furs. Even her most romantic visions had never taken the form of personal desire, or ambition in its most nebulous stage: they had simply pleased her fresh and natural fancy and served to gild the hardness and crudeness of her life.—that was all. Her experiences had been almost too terrible for belief, viewed at our distance from them: she had passed through scenes of incredible horror and suffering, but her nature had not been chilled, stunted or hardened. In body and in temper her development had been sound and beautiful. It was even thus that our great-grandmothers triumpned over adversity, hardships, Indescribable danger. We cannot say that the strong, lithe, happy-hearted Alice of old Vincennes was the only one of her kind. Few of us who have inherited the faded portraits of our INDIGESTION!!! UPSET STHSCH, GAUSS, USE Chew a few Pleasant Tablets. Instant Stomach Relief

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beauty, wit and great lovableness flourished in the cabins of pioneers all the way from the Edisto to the Licking, from the Connecticut to the Wabash. Beverley's advent could not fail to mean a great deal in the life of a girl like Alice: anew era, as it were, would naturally begin for her the moment that his personal influence touched her imagination; but it is well not to measure her too strictly by the standard of our present taste and the specialized forms of our social and moral code. She was a true child of the wilderness, a girl who grew, as the wild prairie rose grew, not on account of innumerable exigencies, accidents and hardships, but in spite of them. She had blushed unseen, and had wasted divine sweets upon a more than desert air. But when Beverley came near her, at first carelessly droning his masculine monotonies, as the wandering bee to the lonely and lovely rose, and presently striking her soul as with the wings of iove, there fell a change into her heart of hearts, and lo! her haunting and elusive dreams began to condense and take on forms that startled her with their wonderful splendor and beauty. These she saw all the time, sleeping or waking; they made bright summer of the frozen stream and snapping gale, the snowdrifts and the sleet. In her brave young heart, swelled the ineffable song —the music never yet caught by syrinx or flute or violin, the words no

tongue can speak. Ah, here may be the secret of that vigorous, brave, sweet life of our pioneer maids, wives and mothers. It was love that gave those tender hearts the iron strength and heroic persistence at which the world must forever wonder. And do we appreciate those women? Let the old world boast Its crowned kings, its mailed knights, its ladies of the court and castle, but we of the new world, we of the powerful West, let us brim our cups with the wine of undying devotion, and drink to the memory of the Women of the Revolution—to the humble but good and marvelously brave and faithful women like those of old Vincennesg. But if Alice was being radically influenced by Beverley, he in turn found anew light suffusing his nature, and he was not unaware that it came out of her eyes, her face, her smiles, her voice, her soul. It was the old, well known, inexplicable, mutual magnetism, which from the first hits been the same on the highest mountain top and in the lowest valley. The queen and the milkmaid, the king and the hind may come together only to find the king walking off with the lowly beauty and her fragrant pail, while away stalks the lusty rustic, to be lord and master of the queen. la)v is love, and it thrives in all climes nder till conditions. There is an inevitable and curious j protest that comes up unbidden be j •.ween lovers; it takes many forms In accordance with particular circumstances. It is the demand for equality and perfection. Love itself is without degrees—it is perfect—but when shall it see the perfect object? It does see it, and it does not se it, in very beloved being. Beverley found his mind turning, as on a pivot, round and round upon the thought that Alice might be impossible to him. The mystery of her life seemed to force her below the line of his aristocratic vision, so that he could not fairly consider her. and yet wdth all his heart he loved her, Alice, on the other hand, had her bookish ideal to reckon with, despite the fact that she daily dashed it contemptuously down. She was different from Adrienne Bourcier, who bewailed the absence of her untamable lover; she wished that Beverley had not, as she somehow viewed it, weakly surrendered to Hamilton. His apparently complacent acceptance of idle captivity did not comport with her dream of knighthood and heroism. She had been all the time half expecting him to do something that would stamp him a hero. Counter protests of this sort are never sufficiently vigorous to take a fall out of love; they merely serve to worry his temper by lightly hindering his feet. And It Is surprising how love does delight himself with being entangled. Both Beverley and Alice day by day felt the cord tightening which drew their hearts together—each acknowledged it secretly, but strove not to evince it openly. Meantime both were as happy and as restlessly die satisfied as love and uncertainty could make them. Amid the activities in which Hamilton was engaged—his dealings with the Indians and the work of reconstructing the fort—he found time to worry his temper about the purloined flag. Like every other man in the world, he was superstitious, and it had come into his head that to insure himself and his plans against disaster, lie must have the banner of his captives as a budge of his victory. It was a small matter; but It magnified itself as he dwelt upon it. He suspected that Alice had deceived him. He sharply questioned Father Beret, only to be half convinced that the good priest told the truth when he said that he knew nothing whatever on the subject beyond the fact that the banner had myseriously disappeared from under his floor. Captain Farnsworth scarcely sympathized with his chief about the flag, but he was nothing If not anxious to gain Hamilton’s highest confidence. His military zeal knew no bounds, and he never let pass even the sligthest opportunity to show it. Hence his persistent search for a clew to the missing banner. He was no respecter of persons. He frankly suspected both Alice and Father Beret of lying. He would himself have lied under the existing circumstances, and he considered himself as truthful and trustworthy as priest or maiden. “I’ll get that flag for you,” he said to Hamilton, “If I have to put every man, woman and child in this town on the rack. It lies, I think, between Miss Roussillon and the priest, al though both insistently deny it. I’ve I thought it over in every way. and I j can’t see how they can both be lg-1 norant of where It is or at least who | got it.” Hamilton, since being treated to that wonderful blow on the jaw, was apt to fall into a spasm of anger whenever the name Roussillon was spoken in his hearing. Involuntarily he would put his hand to his cheek, and grimace reminiscently. “It it’s that girl, make her tell,” ho savagely commanded. “Let’s have no 'trifling about It. If It’s the priest.

DOINGS OF THE DUFFS—

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THEM DAYS IS GONE FOREVER—

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then make him tell, or tie him up by the thumbs. Get that flag, or show some good reason for your failure. I’m not going to be bailled.” The captain’s adventure with Father Beret came just In time to make It count against that courageous and bellicose missionary in more ways than one. Farnsworth did not telj Hamilton or any other person about what- the priest had done to him. but nursed his sore ribs and his wrath.

OUT OUR WAY—By WILLIAMS

THE OLD HOME TOWN—By STANLEY

waiting patiently for the revenge that he meant soon to take. Alice heard from Adrienne the story of Farnsworth’s conduct and his humiiating discomfiture at the hands of Father Beret. She was both indignant and delighted, sympathizing with Adrienne and glorying in the priest’s vigorous pugilistic achievement. “Well,” she remarked, with one of her infectious trills of laughter, “so far the French have the best of It,

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

anyway! Papa Roussillon knocked the Governor’s cheek nearly off, then Rene cracked the Irish corporal’s head, and now Father Beret has taught Captain Farnsworth a lesson in fisticuffs that he’ll not soon forget! If the good work can only go on a little longer we shall see every English soldier in Vincennes wearing the mark of a Frenchman’s blow.” Then her mood suddenly changed from smiling lightness to almost fierce

Tom’s Second Experience

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gravity, and she added: "Adrienne Bourcier, if Captain Farnsworth ever offers to treat me as he did you, mark my words, I’ll kill him—kill him, Indeed I will! Tou ought to see me!” "But he won’t dare touch, you,” Odrienne, looking at h<r friend with round, admiring eyes. “lie knows very well that you are not little and timid like me. He’d be afraid of you." "I wish he would try it- How I

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS—By BLOSSER

OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

would love to shoot him into pieces, the hateful wretch! I wish he would.” The French inhabitants all, or nearly all, felt as Alice did; but at present they were helpless and dared not say or do anything against the English. Xor wap this feeling confined to the creoles jof Vincennes: it had spread to most! of the points where trading posts existed. Hamilton found this out too (late to mend some of his mistakes; but he set himself on the alert

TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1923

—By ALLMAN

—By AL ROSEN

und organized scouting bodies of In. dians under white officers to keep him informed as to the American movements in Kentucky and along the Ohio. One of these bands brought in as captive Col. Francis Vigo, of St. Isouis, a Spaniard by birth, an American by adoption, a patriot to the core, who had large influence over both Indians and creoies in the Illinois country. (To Be Continued^