Produced by David Widger






THE SKELETON ON ROUND ISLAND

From “Mackinac And Lake Stories”, 1899

By Mary Hartwell Catherwood



_On the 15th day of March, 1897, Ignace Pelott died at Mackinac Island,
aged ninety-three years._

_The old quarter-breed, son of a half breed Chippewa mother and
French father, took with him into silence much wilderness lore of the
Northwest. He was full of stories when warmed to recital, though at the
beginning of a talk his gentle eyes dwelt on the listener with anxiety,
and he tapped his forehead--“So many things gone from there!” His
habit of saying “Oh God, yes,” or “Oh God, no,” was not in the least
irreverent, but simply his mild way of using island English._

_While water lapped the beach before his door and the sun smote sparkles
on the strait, he told about this adventure across the ice, and his
hearer has taken but few liberties with the recital._




THE SKELETON ON ROUND ISLAND


I am to carry Mamselle Rosalin of Green Bay from Mackinac to Cheboygan
that time, and it is the end of March, and the wind have turn from east
to west in the morning. A man will go out with the wind in the east, to
haul wood from Boblo, or cut a hole to fish, and by night he cannot get
home--ice, it is rotten; it goes to pieces quick when the March wind
turns.

I am not afraid for me--long, tall fellow then; eye that can see to
Point aux Pins; I can lift more than any other man that goes in the
boats to Green Bay or the Soo; can swim, run on snow-shoes, go without
eating two, three days, and draw my belt in. Sometimes the ice-floes
carry me miles, for they all go east down the lakes when they start, and
I have landed the other side of Drummond. But when you have a woman with
you--Oh God, yes, that is different.

The way of it is this: I have brought the mail from St. Ignace with my
traino--you know the train-au-galise--the birch sledge with dogs. It
is flat, and turn up at the front like a toboggan. And I have take the
traino because it is not safe for a horse; the wind is in the west, and
the strait bends and looks too sleek. Ice a couple of inches thick will
bear up a man and dogs. But this old ice a foot thick, it is turning
rotten. I have come from St. Ignace early in the afternoon, and the
people crowd about to get their letters, and there is Mamselle Rosalin
crying to go to Cheboygan, because her lady has arrive there sick, and
has sent the letter a week ago. Her friends say:

“It is too late to go to-day, and the strait is dangerous.”

She say: “I make a bundle and walk. I must go when my lady is sick and
her husband the lieutenant is away, and she has need of me.”

Mamselle's friends talk and she cry. She runs and makes a little bundle
in the house and comes out ready to walk to Cheboygan. There is nobody
can prevent her. Some island people are descend from noblesse of France.
But none of them have travel like Mamselle Rosalin with the officer's
wife to Indiana, to Chicago, to Detroit. She is like me, French.* The
girls use to turn their heads to see me walk in to mass; but I never
look grand as Mamselle Rosalin when she step out to that ice.

     * The old fellow would not own the Chippewa.

I have not a bit of sense; I forget maman and my brothers and sisters
that depend on me. I run to Mamselle Rosalin, take off my cap, and bow
from my head to my heel, like you do in the dance. I will take her to
Cheboygan with my traino--Oh God, yes! And I laugh at the wet track the
sledge make, and pat my dogs and tell them they are not tired. I wrap
her up in the fur, and she thank me and tremble, and look me through
with her big black eyes so that I am ready to go down in the strait.

The people on the shore hurrah, though some of them cry out to warn us.

“The ice is cracked from Mission Point to the hook of Round Island,
Ignace Pelott!”

“I know that,” I say. “Good-day, messieurs!”

The crack from Mission Point--under what you call Robinson's Folly--to
the hook of Round Island always comes first in a breaking up; and I hold
my breath in my teeth as I skurry the dogs across it. The ice grinds,
the water follows the sledge. But the sun is so far down in the
southwest, I think “The wind will grow colder. The real thaw will not
come before to-morrow.”

[Illustration: The Train au Galise 080]

I am to steer betwixt the east side of Round Island and Boblo. When we
come into the shadow of Boblo we are chill with damp, far worse than the
clear sharp air that blows from Canada. I lope beside the traino, and
not take my eyes off the course to Cheboygan, except that I see the
islands look blue, and darkness stretching before its time. The sweat
drop off my face, yet I feel that wind through my wool clothes, and
am glad of the shelter between Boblo and Round Island, for the strait
outside will be the worst.

There is an Indian burying-ground on open land above the beach on that
side of Round Island. I look up when the thick woods are pass, for the
sunset ought to show there. But what I see is a skeleton like it is
sliding down hill from the graveyard to the beach. It does not move. The
earth is wash from it, and it hangs staring at me.

I cannot tell how that make me feel! I laugh, for it is funny; but I am
ashame, like my father is expose and Mamselle Rosalin can see him. If
I do not cover him again I am disgrace. I think I will wait till some
other day when I can get back from Cheboygan; for what will she say if
I stop the traino when we have such a long journey, and it is so near
night, and the strait almost ready to move? So I crack the whip, but
something pull, pull! I cannot go on! I say to myself, “The ground is
froze; how can I cover up that skeleton without any shovel, or even a
hatchet to break the earth?”

But something pull, pull, so I am oblige to stop, and the dogs turn in
without one word and drag the sledge up the beach of Bound Island.

“What is the matter?” says Mamselle Eosalin. She is out of the sledge as
soon as it stops.

I not know what to answer, but tell her I have to cut a stick to mend
my whip-handle. I think I will cut a stick and rake some earth over the
skeleton to cover it, and come another day with a shovel and dig a new
grave. The dogs lie down and pant, and she looks through me with her big
eyes like she beg me to hurry.

But there is no danger she will see the skeleton. We both look back to
Mackinac. The island have its hump up against the north, and the village
in its lap around the bay, and the Mission eastward near the cliff; but
all seem to be moving! We run along the beach of Bound Island, and then
we see the channel between that and Boblo is moving too, and the ice is
like wet loaf-sugar, grinding as it floats.

We hear some roars away off, like cannon when the Americans come to the
island. My head swims. I cross myself and know why something pull,
pull, to make me bring the traino to the beach, and I am oblige to that
skeleton who slide down hill to warn me.

When we have seen Mackinac, we walk to the other side and look south and
southeast towards Cheboygan.. All is the same. The ice is moving out of
the strait.

“We are strand on this island!” says Mamselle Rosalin. “Oh, what shall
we do?”

I tell her it is better to be prisoners on Bound Island than on a cake
of ice in the strait, for I have tried the cake of ice and know.

“We will camp and build a fire in the cove opposite Mackinac,” I say.
“Maman and the children will see the light and feel sure we are safe.”

“I have done wrong,” says she. “If you lose your life on this journey,
it is my fault.”

Oh God, no! I tell her. She is not to blame for anything, and there is
no danger. I have float many a time when the strait breaks up, and not
save my hide so dry as it is now. We only have to stay on Round Island
till we can get off.

“And how long will that be?” she ask.

I shrug my shoulders. There is no telling. Sometimes the strait clears
very soon, sometimes not. Maybe two, three days.

Rosalin sit down on a stone.

I tell her we can make camp, and show signals to Mackinac, and when the
ice permit, a boat will be sent.

She is crying, and I say her lady will be well. No use to go to
Cheboygan anyhow, for it is a week since her lady sent for her. But
she cry on, and I think she wish I leave her alone, so I say I will get
wood. And I unharness the dogs, and run along the beach to cover that
skeleton before dark. I look and cannot find him at all. Then I go up to
the graveyard and look down. There is no skeleton anywhere. I have seen
his skull and his ribs and his arms and legs, all sliding down hill. But
he is gone!

The dusk close in upon the islands, and I not know what to think--cross
myself, two, three times; and wish we had land on Boblo instead of Round
Island, though there are wild beasts on both.

But there is no time to be scare at skeletons that slide down and
disappear, for Mamselle Rosalin must have her camp and her place to
sleep. Every man use to the bateaux have always his tinder-box, his
knife, his tobacco, but I have more than that; I have leave Mackinac so
quick I forget to take out the storekeeper's bacon that line the bottom
of the sledge, and Mamselle Eosalin sit on it in the furs! We have
plenty meat, and I sing like a voyageur while I build the fire. Drift,
so dry in summer you can light it with a coal from your pipe, lay on the
beach, but is now winter-soaked, and I make a fireplace of logs, and cut
pine branches to help it.

It is all thick woods on Round Island, so close it tear you to pieces if
you try to break through; only four-footed things can crawl there. When
the fire is blazing up I take my knife and cut a tunnel like a little
room, and pile plenty evergreen branches. This is to shelter Mamselle
Rosalin, for the night is so raw she shiver. Our tent is the sky,
darkness, and clouds. But I am happy. I unload the sledge. The bacon is
wet. On long sticks the slices sizzle and sing while I toast them, and
the dogs come close and blink by the fire, and lick their chops. Rosalin
laugh and I laugh, for it smell like a good kitchen; and we sit and eat
nothing but toasted meat--better than lye corn and tallow that you have
when you go out with the boats. Then I feed the dogs, and she walk with
me to the water edge, and we drink with our hands.

It is my house, when we sit on the fur by the fire. I am so light I want
my fiddle. I wish it last like a dream that Mamselle Rosalin and me keep
house together on Round Island. You not want to go to heaven when the
one you think about all the time stays close by you.

But pretty soon I want to go to heaven quick. I think I jump in the lake
if maman and the children had anybody but me. When I light my pipe she
smile. Then her great big eyes look off towards Mackinac, and I turn and
see the little far-away lights.

“They know we are on Round Island together,” I say to cheer her, and she
move to the edge of the fur. Then she say “Good-night,” and get up and
go to her tunnel-house in the bushes, and I jump up too, and spread the
fur there for her. And I not get back to the fire before she make a
door of all the branches I have cut, and is hid like a squirrel I feel
I dance for joy because she is in my camp for me to guard. But what is
that? It is a woman that cry out loud by herself! I understand now why
she sit down so hopeless when we first land. I have not know much about
women, but I understand how she feel. It is not her lady, or the dark,
or the ice break up, or the cold. It is not Ignace Pelott. It is the
name of being prison on Round Island with a man till the ice is out
of the straits. She is so shame she want to die. I think I will kill
myself. If Mamselle Rosalin cry out loud once more, I plunge in the
lake--and then what become of maman and the children?

She is quieter; and I sit down and cannot smoke, and the dogs pity me.
Old Sauvage lay his nose on my knee. I do not say a word to him, but I
pat him, and we talk with our eyes, and the bright camp-fire shows each
what the other is say.

“Old Sauvage,” I tell him, “I am not good man like the priest. I have
been out with the boats, and in Indian camps, and I not had in my life a
chance to marry, because there are maman and the children. But you know,
old Sauvage, how I have feel about Mamselle Rosalin, it is three years.”

Old Sauvage hit his tail on the ground and answer he know.

“I have love her like a dog that not dare to lick her hand. And now she
hate me because I am shut on Round Island with her while the ice goes
out. I not good man, but it pretty tough to stand that.” Old Sauvage
hit his tail on the ground and say, “That so.” I hear the water on the
gravel like it sound when we find a place to drink; then it is plenty
company, but now it is lonesome. The water say to people on Mackinac,
“Rosalin and Ignace Pelott, they are on Round Island.” What make you
proud, maybe, when you turn it and look at it the other way, make you
sick. But I cannot walk the broken ice, and if I could, she would be lef
alone with the dogs. I think I will build another camp.

But soon there is a shaking in the bushes, and Sauvage and his
bledgemates bristle and stand up and show their teeth. Out comes
Mamselle Eosalin with a scream to the other side of the fire.

I have nothing except my knife, and I take a chunk of burning wood and
go into her house. Maybe I see some green eyes. I have handle vild-cat
skin too much not to know that smell in the dark.

I take all the branches from Rosalin's house and pile them by the fire,
and spread the fur robe on them. And I pull out red coals and put more
logs on before I sit down away off between her and the spot where she
hear that noise. If the graveyard was over us, I would expect to see
that skeleton once more.

“What was it?” she whisper.

I tell her maybe a stray wolf.

“Wolves not eat people, mamselle, unless they hunt in a pack; and they
run from fire. You know what M'sieu' Cable tell about wolves that chase
him on the ice when he skate to Cheboygan? He come to great wide crack
in ice, he so scare he jump it and skate right on! Then he look back,
and see the wolves go in, head down, every wolf caught and drown in the
crack. It is two days before he come home, and the east wind have blow
to freeze that crack over--and there are all the wolf tails, stick up,
froze stiff in a row! He bring them home with him--but los them on the
way, though he show the knife that cut them off!”

“I have hear that,” says Rosalin. “I think he lie.”

“He say he take his out on a book,” I tell her, but we both laugh,
and she is curl down so close to the fire her cheeks turn rosy. For a
camp-fire will heat the air all around until the world is like a big
dark room; and we are shelter from the wind. I am glad she is begin to
enjoy herself. And all the time I have a hand on my knife, and the cold
chills down my back where that hungry vild-cat will set his claws if he
jump on me; and I cannot turn around to face him because Rosalin thinks
it is nothing but a cowardly wolf that sneak away. Old Sauvage is uneasy
and come to me, his fangs all expose, but I drive him back and listen to
the bushes behind me.

“Sing, M'sieu' Pelott,” says Rosalin.

Oh God, yes I it is easy to sing with a vild-cat watch you on one side
and a woman on the other!

“But I not know anything except boat songs.”

“Sing boat songs.”

So I sing like a bateau full of voyageurs, and the dark echo, and that
vild-cat must be astonish. When you not care what become of you, and
your head is light and your heart like a stone on the beach, you not
mind vild-cats, but sing and laugh.

I cast my eye behin sometimes, and feel my knife. It make me smile to
think what kind of creature come to my house in the wilderness, and I
say to myself: “Hear my cat purr! This is the only time I will ever
have a home of my own, and the only time the woman I want sit beside my
fire.”

Then I ask Rosalin to sing to me, and she sing “Malbrouck,” like her
father learn it in Kebec. She watch me, and I know her eyes have more
danger for me than the vild-cat's. It ought to tear me to pieces if I
forget maman and the children. It ought to be scare out the bushes to
jump on a poor fool like me. But I not stop entertain it--Oh God, no!
I say things that I never intend to say, like they are pull out of my
mouth. When your heart has ache, sometimes it break up quick like the
ice.

“There is Paul Pepin,” I tell her. “He is a happy man; he not trouble
himself with anybody at all. His father die; he let his mother take care
of herself. He marry a wife, and get tired of her and turn her off with
two children. The priest not able to scare him; he smoke and take his
dram and enjoy life. If I was Paul Pepin I would not be torment.”

“But you are not torment,” says Rosalin. “Everybody speak well of you.”

“Oh God, yes,” I tell her; “but a man not live on the breath of his
neighbors. I am thirty years old, and I have take care of my mother and
brothers and sisters since I am fifteen. I not made so I can leave them,
like Paul Pepin. He marry when he please. I not able to marry at all. It
is not far I can go from the island. I cannot get rich. My work must be
always the same.”

“But why you want to marry?” says Rosalin, as if that surprise her.
And I tell her it is because I have seen Rosalin of Green Bay; and she
laugh. Then I think it is time for the vild-cat to jump. I am thirty
years old, and have nothing but what I can make with the boats or my
traino; the children are not grown; my mother depend on me; and I have
propose to a woman, and she laugh at me!

But I not see, while we sing and talk, that the fire is burn lower, and
old Sauvage has crept around the camp into the bushes.

That end all my courtship. I not use to it, and not have any business
to court, anyhow. I drop my head on my breast, and it is like when I am
little and the measle go in. Paul Pepin he take a woman by the chin and
smack her on the lips. The women not laugh at him, he is so rough. I am
as strong as he is, but I am afraid to hurt; I am oblige to take care of
what need me. And I am tie to things I love--even the island--so that I
cannot get away.

“I not want to marry,” says Rosalin, and I see her shake her head at me.
“I not think about it at all.”

“Mamselle,” I say to her, “you have not any inducement like I have, that
torment you three years.”

“How you know that?” she ask me. And then her face change from laughter,
and she spring up from the blanket couch, and I think the camp go around
and around me--all fur and eyes and claws and teeth--and I not know what
I am doing, for the dogs are all over me--yell--yell--yell; and then
I am stop stabbing, because the vild-cat has let go of Sauvage, and
Sauvage has let go of the vild-cat, and I am looking at them and know
they are both dead, and I cannot help him any more.

[Illustration: The camp go round and round 086]

You are confuse by such things where there is noise, and howling
creatures sit up and put their noses in the air, like they call their
mate back out of the dark. I am sick for my old dog. Then I am proud he
has kill it, and wipe my knife on its fur, but feel ashame that I have
not check him driving it into camp. And then Rosalin throw her arms
around my neck and kiss me.

It is many years I have tell Rosalin she did that. But a woman will deny
what she know to be the trut. I have tell her the courtship had end, and
she begin it again herself, and keep it up till the boats take us off
Round Island. The ice not run out so quick any more now like it did
then. My wife say it is a long time we waited, but when I look back it
seem the shortest time I ever live--only two days.

Oh God, yes, it is three years before I marry the woman that not want to
marry at all; then my brothers and sisters can take care of themselves,
and she help me take care of maman.

It is when my boy Gabriel come home from the war to die that I see the
skeleton on Round Island again. I am again sure it is wash out, and I go
ashore to bury it, and it disappear. Nobody but me see it. Then before
Rosalin die I am out on the ice-boat, and it give me warning. I know
what it mean; but you cannot always escape misfortune. I cross myself
when I see it; but I find good luck that first time I land; and maybe I
find good luck every time, after I have land.