The padlocked book--In this book I am going to write you, Louis, a letter which will never be delivered; because I shall burn it when it is finished. Yet that will not prevent my tantalizing you about it. To the padlocked book I can say what I want to say. To you I must say what is expedient. That is a foolish woman who does violence to love by inordinate loving. Yet first I will tell you that I sink to sleep saying, "He loves me!" and rise to the surface saying, "He loves me!" and sink again saying, "He loves me!" all night long. The days when I see you are real days, finished and perfect, and this is the best of them all. God forever bless in paradise your mother for bearing you. If you never had come to the world I should not have waked to life myself. And why this is I cannot tell. The first time I ever saw your tawny head and tawny eyes, though you did not notice me, I said, "Whether he is the king or not would make no difference." Because I knew you were more than the king to me. Sire, you told me once you could not understand why people took kindly to you. There is in you a gentle dignity and manhood, most royal. As you come into a room you cast your eyes about unfearing. Your head and shoulders are erect. You are like a lion in suppleness and tawny color, which influences me against my will. You inspire Confidence. Even girls like Annabel, who feel merely at their finger ends, and are as well satisfied with one husband as another, know you to be solid man, not the mere image of a man. Besides these traits there is a power going out from you that takes hold of people invisibly. My father told me there was a man at the court of your father who could put others to sleep by a waving of his hands. I am not comparing you to this charlatan; yet when you touch my hand a strange current runs through me. When we were in Paris I used to dress myself every morning like a priestess going to serve in a temple. And what was it for? To worship one dear head for half an hour perhaps. You robbed me of the sight of you for two months. * * * * * Sophie Saint-Michel told me to beware of loving a man. To-day he says, "I love you! I need you! I shall go to the devil without you!" To-morrow he turns to his affairs. In six months he says, "I was a fool!" Next year he says, "Who was it that drove me wild for a time last year? What was her name?" * * * * * Is love a game where men and women try to outwit each other, and man boasts, "She loves me"--not "I love her"? You are two persons. Lazarre belongs to me. He follows, he thinks about me. He used to slip past my windows at Lake George, and cast his eyes up at the panes. But Louis is my sovereign. He sees and thinks and acts without me, and his lot is apart from mine. * * * * * We are in a ship going to the side of the world where you are. Except that we are going towards you, it is like being pushed off a cliff. All my faith in the appearances of things is at an end. I have been juggled with. I have misjudged. I could have insisted that we hold Mont-Louis as tenants. The count is our friend. It is not a strong man's fault that a weak man is weak and unfortunate. Yet seeing Cousin Philippe wince, I could not put the daily humiliation upon him. He is like my father come back, broken, helpless. And Paul and I, who are young, must take care of him where he will be least humbled. I was over-pampered in Mont-Louis and Paris. I like easy living, carriages, long-tailed gowns, jewels, trained servants, music, and spectacles on the stage; a park and wide lands all my own; seclusion from people who do not interest me; idleness in enjoyment. I am the devil of vanity. Annabel has not half the points I have. When the men are around her I laugh to think I shall be fine and firm as a statue when she is a mass of wrinkles and a wisp of fuzz. When she is a mass of wrinkles and a wisp of fuzz she will be riper and tenderer inside. But will the men see that? No. They will be off after a fresher Annabel. So much for men. On the other hand, I had but a few months of luxury, and may count on the hardness that comes of endurance; for I was an exile from childhood. There is strength in doing the right thing. If there were no God, if Christ had never died on the cross, I should have to do the right thing because it is right. Why should we lay up grievances against one another? They must disappear, and they only burn our hearts. Sometimes I put my arms around Ernestine, and rest her old head against me. She revolts. People incline to doubt the superiority of a person who will associate with them. But the closer our poverty rubs us the more Ernestine insists upon class differences. There should be a colossal mother going about the world to turn men over her lap and give them the slipper. They pine for it. Am I helping forward the general good, or am I only suffering Nature's punishment? A woman can fasten the bonds of habit on a man, giving him food from her table, hourly strengthening his care for her. By merely putting herself before him every day she makes him think of her. What chance has an exiled woman against the fearful odds of daily life? Yet sometimes I think I can wait a thousand years. In sun and snow, in wind and dust, a woman waits. If she stretched her hand and said "Come," who could despise her so much as she would despise herself? What is so cruel as a man? Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, he presses the iron spike of silence in. Coward!--to let me suffer such anguish! Is it because I kissed you? That was the highest act of my life! I groped down the black stairs of the Tuileries blinded by light. Why are the natural things called wrong, and the unnatural ones just? Is it because I said I would come to you sometime? This is what I meant: that it should give me no jealous pang to think of another woman's head on your breast; that there is a wedlock which appearances cannot touch. No, I never would--I never would seek you; though sometimes the horror of doing without you turns into reproach. What is he doing? He may need me--and I am letting his life slip away. Am I cheating us both of what could have harmed no one? It is not that usage is broken off. Yet if you were to come, I would punish you for coming! Fine heroic days I tell myself we are marching to meet each other. If the day has been particularly hard, I say, "Perhaps I have carried his load too, and he marches lighter." You have faults, no doubt, but the only one I could not pardon would be your saying, "I repent!" The instinct to conceal defeat and pain is so strong in me that I would have my heart cut out rather than own it ached. Yet many women carry all before them by a little judicious whining and rebellion. I never believe in your unfaith. If you brought a wife and showed her to me I should be sorry for her, and still not believe in your unfaith. Louis, I have been falling down flat and crawling the ground. Now I am up again. It didn't hurt. It is the old German fairy story. Every day gold must be spun out of straw. How big the pile of straw looks every morning, and how little the handful of gold every night! This prairie in the Indiana Territory that I dreaded as a black gulf, is a grassy valley. I love the garden; and I love to hoe the Indian corn. It springs so clean from the sod, and is a miracle of growth. After the stalks are around my knees, they are soon around my shoulders. The broad leaves have a fragrance, and the silk is sweet as violets. We wash our clothes in the river. Women who hoe corn, dig in a garden, and wash clothes, earn the wholesome bread of life. To-day Paul brought the first bluebells of spring, and put them in water for me. They were buds; and when they bloomed out he said, "God has blessed these flowers." We have to nurse the sick. The goodness of these pioneer women is unfailing. It is like the great and kind friendship of the Du Chaumonts. They help me take care of Cousin Philippe. Paul meditated to-day, "I don't want to hurt the Father's feelings. I don't want to say He was greedy and made a better place for Himself in heaven than He made for us down here. Is it nicer just because He is there?" His prayer: "God bless my father and mother and Ernestine. God keep my father and mother and Ernestine. And keep my mother with me day and night, dressed and undressed! God keep together all that love each other." When he is a man I am going to tell him, and say: "But I have built my house, not wrecked it, I have been yours, not love's." He tells me such stories as this: "Once upon a time there was such a loving angel came down. And they ran a string through his stomach and hung him on the wall. He never whined a bit." The people in this country, which is called free, are nearly all bound. Those who lack money as we do cannot go where they please, or live as they would live. Is that freedom? * * * * * On a cool autumn night, when the fire crackles, the ten children of the settlement, fighting or agreeing, come running from their houses like hens. We sit on the floor in front of the hearth, and I suffer the often-repeated martyrdom of the "Fire Pig." This tale, invented once as fast as I could talk, I have been doomed to repeat until I dread the shades of evening. The children bunch their heads together; their lips part, as soon as I begin to say: Do you see that glowing spot in the heart of the coals? That is the house of the Fire Pig. One day the Fire Pig found he had no more corn, and he was very hungry. So he jumped out of his house and ran down the road till he came to a farmer's field. "Good morning, Mr. Farmer," said the little pig. "Have you any corn for me to-day?" "Why, who are you?" said the farmer. "I'm a little Fire Pig." "No, I haven't any corn for a Fire Pig." The pig ran on till he came to another farmer's field. "Good morning, Mr. Farmer, have you any corn for me to-day?" "Who are you?" said the farmer. "Oh, I'm the little Fire Pig." "I don't know," said the farmer. "I would give you a great bagful if you could kill the snake which comes every night and steals my cattle." The pig thought, "How can I kill that snake?" but he was so hungry he knew he should starve without corn, so he said he would try. The farmer told him to go down in the field, where the snake came gliding at night with its head reared high in air. The pig went down in the meadow, and the first creature he saw was a sheep. "Baa!" said the sheep. That was its way of saying "How do you do?" "Who are you?" "I'm the little Fire Pig." "What are you doing here?" "I've come to kill the great snake that eats the farmer's cattle." "I'm very glad," said the sheep, "for it takes my lambs. How are you going to kill it?" "I don't know," said the pig; "can't you help me?" "I'll give you some of my wool." The pig thanked the sheep, and went a little farther and met a horse. "He-ee-ee!" said the horse. That was his way of saying "How do you do?" "Who are you?" "I am the little Fire Pig." "What are you doing here?" "I've come to kill the great snake that eats the farmer's cattle." "I'm glad of that," said the horse; "for it steals my colts. How are you going to do it?" "I don't know," said the pig. "Can't you help me?" "I'll give you some of the long hairs from my tail," said the horse. The pig took them and thanked the horse. And when he went a little farther he met a cow. "Moo!" said the cow. That was her way of saying "How do you do?" "Who are you?" "I'm the little Fire Pig." "What are you doing here?" "I've come to kill the great snake that eats the farmer's cattle." "I am glad of that, for it steals my calves. How are you going to do it?" "I don't know. Can't you help me?" "I'll give you one of my sharp horns," said the cow. So the pig took it and thanked her. Then he spun and he twisted, and he spun and he twisted, and made a strong woolen cord of the sheep's wool. And he wove and he braided, and he wove and he braided, and made a cunning snare of the horse's tail. And he whetted and sharpened, and he whetted and sharpened, and made a keen dart of the cow's horn. --Now when the little pig has all his materials ready, and sees the great snake come gliding, gliding--I turn the situation over to the children. What did he do with the rope, the snare and the horn? They work it out each in his own way. There is a mighty wrangling all around the hearth. One day is never really like another, though it seems so. Perhaps being used to the sight of the Iroquois at Lake George, makes it impossible for me to imagine what the settlers dread, and that is an attack. We are shut around by forests. In primitive life so much time and strength go to the getting of food that we can think of little else. It is as bad to slave at work as to slave at pleasure. But God may forgive what people cannot help. There is a very old woman among the settlers whom they call Granny. We often sit together. She cannot get a gourd edge betwixt her nose and chin when she drinks, and has forgotten she ever had teeth. She does not expect much; but there is one right she contends for, and that is the right of ironing her cap by stretching it over her knee. When I have lived in this settlement long enough, my nose and chin may come together, and I shall forget my teeth. But this much I will exact of fate. My cap shall be ironed. I will not--I will not iron it by stretching it over my knee! Count du Chaumont would be angry if he saw me learning to weave, for instance. You would not be angry. That makes a difference between you as men which I feel but cannot explain. We speak English with our neighbors. Paul, who is to be an American, must learn his language well. I have taught him to read and write. I have taught him the history of his family and of his father's country. His head is as high as my breast. When will my head be as high as his breast? Skenedonk loves you as a young superior brother. I have often wondered what he thought about when he went quietly around at your heels. You told me he had killed and scalped, and in spite of education, was as ready to kill and scalp again as any white man is for war. I dread him like a toad, and wish him to keep on his side of the walk. He is always with you, and no doubt silently urges, "Come back to the wigwams that nourished you!" Am I mistaken? Are we moving farther and farther apart instead of approaching each other? Oh, Louis, does this road lead to nothing? I am glad I gave you that key. It was given thoughtlessly, when I was in a bubble of joy. But if you have kept it, it speaks to you every day. Sophie Saint-Michel told me man sometimes piles all his tokens in a retrospective heap, and says, "Who the deuce gave me this or that?" Sophie's father used to be so enraged at his wife and daughter because he could not restore their lost comforts. But this is really a better disposition than a mean subservience to misfortune. The children love to have me dance gavottes for them. Some of their mothers consider it levity. Still they feel the need of a little levity themselves. We had a great festival when the wild roses were fully in bloom. The prairie is called a mile square, and wherever a plow has not struck, acres of wild roses grow. They hedge us from the woods like a parapet edging a court. These volunteers are very thorny, bearing tender claws to protect themselves with. But I am nimble with my scissors. We took the Jordan oxen, a meek pair that have broken sod for the colony, and twined them with garlands of wild roses. Around and around their horns, and around and around their bodies the long ropes were wound, their master standing by with his goad. That we wound also, and covered his hat with roses. The huge oxen swayed aside, looking ashamed of themselves. And when their tails were ornamented with a bunch at the tip, they switched these pathetically. Still even an ox loves festivity, whether he owns to it or not. We made a procession, child behind child, each bearing on his head all the roses he could carry, the two oxen walking tandem, led by their master in front. Everybody came out and laughed. It was a beautiful sight, and cheered us, though we gave it no name except the Procession of Roses. Often when I open my eyes at dawn I hear music far off that makes my heart swell. It is the waking dream of a king marching with drums and bugles. While I am dressing I hum, "Oh, Richard, O my king!" Louis! Louis! Louis! I cannot--I cannot keep it down! How can I hold still that righteousness may be done through me, when I love--love--love--when I clench my fists and walk on my knees-- I am a wicked woman! What is all this sweet pretense of duty! It covers the hypocrite that loves--that starves--that cries, My king!--my king! Strike me!--drive me within bounds! This long repression--years, years of waiting--for what?--for more waiting!--it is driving me mad! You have the key. I have nothing!