St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-10-07
An Algonquin Legend
BY Florence wilkinson.

ne mad two companions. one young
girl, ollve-skinned and black-haired,
the other an old woman. whose darker
hue showed her to be OF unmixed In
dian blood.
m. Nilleaubille," said Yyonne, '.zaire
ees my grandmozaire's house, at zait
montague, far. far. See you zaire?
Gardez. gardez."
Her English was delicious, mixed as
1t 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
zink we shall haf a storm. And ze
courante is against us. M. Villeaubille. =
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.
Il do not fear re storm, l." said
Yvonne, "but look, grandmere. wat was
zait? Something's wife ran past me, on
ze vater.''
Grandmere started, and looked about
her uneasily.
t'It was the moons reflection in the
stream, Mile. Yvonne," said Will
loughby.
From her place in the bottom of the
boat grandmere rluttered 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. Willcughby himself was
startled by a voice so human, SO mel
ancholy, sounding in that solitude.
II believe it is child crying!" he
exclaimed. Let us go to the shore"
"Non, 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 ze place it sounded
it was above us. We will go ON qvick-
qvick!"
was wild loon, perhaps, in pas
Willoughby said. ''They have
- "a cry
90 endea,oring to reassure him
6ell as the others. for fear is
At contagious.
MAS not a loon, nor was it hu-
nah. the old woman spoke out in
French for the first time.
Lock there." She pointed toward
a bay of the river that ran up into
marshy meadow
Willougby looked. but in the twi-
light he saw nothing except the white
mist slowly exhaling from the water
and the fag-fowers along the meadow
edge.
''What is to" 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 question-the 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
Watching the dusky shore past which
they were closely skimming, he OBJ
served slight, sinuous motion among
the reeds of the margin. and then some
thing slid suddenly in front of the ca
noe
"It is she." the girl cried, suddenly
bowing her head forward upon grand
ia Jongleuse! She is following us
tonight"
..Hush. do not speak her name" said
crandmere's husky voice, "or one of us
will be taken"
Again Nilloughby asked. and more
earnestly. for an explanation.
II viii tell you. Monsieur Villeaubille;
but il 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 in tradition among the
seignories of Riviere-Quelle:
ssShe comes at twilight. when the
mist rises from the streams; when the
whippoorwill cries among the grasses.
then her voice is heard quavering and
moapinp like lost child in the lonely
marshes. She treads softly on the
white, spongy moss. and where her
footrrints are she leaves behind her
little pools of water. One cannot see
her. N. villeaubille. No. no. But one
can see the rushes moving where she
walks at twilight, for she gathers the
pale-purple sticky fiag-fiowers for her
hair Her hair IS long and waves in the
hreeze. Sometimes one feels it brush
the cheek, like the touch of dank
waterweed. Evil-evil for one whom
she touches. monsieur
"Vhere the alders droop and dip she
loves to 90. and there she sits and
swings her feet in the water, and the
rold low fog rises about her. The sif-
Aeur whistles in the woods. 1t is a
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
,,u.hes his canoe under the low-hang-
;r0 branches, and next morning one
finds it empty.
..Cne can never see her, but some
times her long robe, which is the color
,f evening, leaves a trail of little stars
behind it, pale and yellow. among the
sedges, or sheet of blush light on the
.uater where the scum is like cream and
the blue-winged dragon-fy darts. Then
we know she has been there. the JON
gleuse.
sAnd along the Riviere du Grand
Desert, NJ. villcauble. she floats at
night. The little boy who gathers blue,
series in the swamps-the sun sets
wh;le he is still far from home. Then
~ starts to return, ard he sees flicker
. 1itfle light there through the bushes
md he thinks it is the candle in the
r;tchen window of his home. 1t is the
Iady of the Flag Flowers, for SO We
-yi call her, monsieur; we dare not
.reak her name. He hears call. faint
ISa <hfnkS III is his mother call