River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1899-09-07
An Algonquin Legend
BY Florence Wilkinson.


Is NOT this life?' he thought, as
he floated along a little Canadian
stream, few miles above its foaming
shallow rapids.
He had two companions, one young
girl, olivc-skinned and black-haircd,
the other an old woman, whose darker
hue showed her to be of unmixed In
dian blood.
m. Villeaubille," said Yvonne, ''zaire
ees my grandmozaire's house, at zait
montague, far, far. See you zaire?
Gardez! gardez!"
Her English was delicious, mixed as
it was with French words and spoken
with the Canadian-French accent. She
spoke to him in English, except when
she became much interested in the con-
versation, or when the theme taxed
too heavily her slender vocabulary.
"Ze rivaire she wind much, and l
link we shall hat a storm. And re
courante is against us, NJ. Nilleaubille.
He glanced up at the sky where the
clouds were gathering above the top
of the Montague Ronde, dark, heavy
clouds. through which the headlight
ming flashed fitfully.
81 do not fear re storm, /, said
Yvonne, "but look, grandmere, wat was
zait? Something's wife ran past me, on
re water"
Grandmere started, and looked about
her uneasily.
ut was the moons reflection in the
stream, Mile. Yvonne," said Will
loughby.
From her place in the bottom of the
boat grandmere muttered an unintel-
ligible something.
In the shadow of the frs the canoe
slid on almost noiselessly, when out of
the silence a wall quivered in the air
above their heads. Yvonne suppressed
a cry of terror and crouched down low
in the canoe. Willoughby himself was
startled by a voice so human, so mel
ancholy, sounding in that solitude.
II believe it is a child crying!" he
exclaimed. Let us go to the shore"
Mon, non, navarro, monsieur"
Yvonne's voice trembled, but she
stopped the paddle with her hand as
he began to reverse the canoe.
'Zaire was not re place it sounded
it was above us. We viii go on qvick-
qvick!"
''It was a wild loon, perhaps, in pas
sage" Willoughby said. "They have
a human cry"
He was endeavoring to reassure him
self as well as the others, for fear is
somewhat contagious.
1T was not a loon, nor was it hui
man." the old woman spoke out in
French for the first time.
Look there!" She pointed toward
n bay of the river that ran up into a
marshy meadow.
Willougby looked, but in the twi-
light he saw nothing except the white
mist slowly eXhaling from the water
and the flag-fowers along the meadow
edge.
What is it?'' he asked, his curiosity
fairly aroused for he perceived that it
was something definite which his COM
panion feared.
Tell me, Mile. Yvonne."
Silence met his questionable girl
putting her finger to her lips with the
gesture of one who dares not speak.
Willoughby's vision became preternat-
urally acute as the weirdness of the sit
uation impressed itself upon him.
Watching the dusky shore past which
they were closely skimming, he OBJ
served a slight, sinuous motion among
the reeds of the margin, and then some
thing slid sud- emily in front of the ca
noe.
"It is she!" the girl cried, suddenly
bowling her head forward upon grand
mere's knees.
LA Jongleuse! She is following us
tonight"
flush! do not speak her name" said
grandmere's husky voice, 'or one of us
will be taken"
Again Willoughby asked. and more
earnestly, for an explanation.
81 will tell you, Monsieur Villeaubille;
but it is Something's you will not lake of
hearing"
Then she continued rapidly in
French, giving her version, somewhat
modified, of the old legend current 200
years ago among the Algonquins and
still preserved III tradition among the
seignories of RiviereQuelle:
"She comes at twilight, when the
mist rises from the streams; when the
whippoorwill cries among the grasses,
then her voice is heard quavering and
moaning like a lost child in the lonely
marshes. She treads softly on the
white, spongy moss. and where her
footprints are she leaves behind her
little pools of water. One cannot see
her. NJ. Nilleaubille. No, no. But one
can see the rushes moving where she
walks at twilight, for she gathers the
pale-purple sticky fiag-fowers for her
hair. Her hair is long and waves in the
breeze. Sometimes one feels il brush
the cheek. like the touch of dank
waterweed. Evil-evil for one whom
she touches, monsieur.
where the alders droop and dip she
loves to 60. and there she sits and
swings her feet in the water, and the
cold low fog rises about her. The sif-
fleur whistles in the woods. 1t is
warning But the belated fisherman
hears the splashing of her feet and
thinks the trout are leaping where the
current is swift in the deep pool. He
pushes his canoe under the low-hang-
ing branches, and next morning one
finds it empty.
lone can never see her, but some
times her long robe. which is the color
OF evening, leaves trail of little stars
behind it, pale and yellow, among the
sedges, or sheet of blush light on the
water where the scum is like cream and
tSe blue-winged dragon-fiy darts. Then
we know she las been there, the JON
gleuse.
~And along the Riviere du Grand
Desert. NJ. ViIleauble she floats at
night. The little boy who gathers blue
berries in the swamps -the sun sets
while he is still far fran home. Then
he starts to return. and he sees flicker
a little light there through the bushes,
and he thinks ii is the candle in the
kitchen window of his home. 1t is the
Lady of the Flag-Flowers. for so we
will call her, monsieur: we dare moi
speak her name. He hears call, faint
faint. He thinks it is his mother cali