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Updated: June 14, 2025
"Ah, well," admitted Steering, borne along rapidly on the vehement current of Bernique's ardour, "with your sort of spirit in the people of Missouri, whatever she was and whatever she is can be but a mighty promise of what she will become " "Ah, there you have it, the note!" interrupted François Placide DeLassus Bernique eagerly, "What she will become! That is the gr-r-and thought, sair.
"At least," cried old Bernique at last, "at least the Teegmores are yours! At last! At last!" At last! At last! Steering's eyes were travelling the long tumbling Tigmore line. "If they are," he said in that musing way he had developed within the last quarter of an hour, "if I take the Tigmores now, Uncle Bernique, I'll pull Madeira's house about him.
"Wuz Unc' Bernique cross because I didn't go rat back like I said I'd do?" he queried slily. "No, I think not. And for my part, I am glad you didn't, for I am hoping that if you are going toward Poetical you won't mind my company. You see, it's pretty dog-on lonely." A very little of the ridge road sufficed to make Bruce sick for comradeship, and his voice showed it.
That you, Uncle Bernique? I've been " The voice was wind-blown, and slipped weakly away. "It's ME! Where are you?" No answer. "Where are you? Hi! Is that you by the bar? Lif' your han' above the drif'-wood! Cayn't you lif' your han'?" A hand shot up from the back of a log that was well hidden by other flotsam, then fell back weakly. "Ay, here I am!
You are reading a letter from the dead now, friend Placide." Steering stopped for a moment with a little shiver, but Bernique urged him on, and he read again "'Placide, in that letter to Madeira were my instructions to turn over the Canaan Tigmores to Bruce Steering, because, I being dead, the hills were due to pass on to my heir. Well, Placide, has Madeira done that?
Bernique proved talkative, full of anecdotes about Missouri's past, and full of belief in her future. In his rich loquacity he roamed the history of the State painstakingly for the edification of Steering, as one who stood at Missouri's gates, inquiring of her true inwardness. He told Missouri's history back to Spain and France, forward to unspeakable splendour. He was intelligent, naïve, unusual.
Piney's parents had not been Italians at all, so Old Bernique told Steering, just plain, everyday Americans, from up "at that St. Louis," quite poor and always on the move. The father had been known throughout the country-side as a "blame' good fiddler" and the mother had been, oh a vair' wonderful woman, if one could believe Old Bernique. But there was no Italian blood in Piney.
He twisted his head like a bird and looked out across the extensive sweep of the land and the long slow curve of the river, a deep inspiration swelling his chest. "Simlike they up an' talk to you, the woods an' the hills an' the quiet, whend you know um," he said. All on the instant Steering knew that, as in the case of Old Bernique, here again was character.
Piney was not at all enthused and stayed very quiet until he parted with Bruce some distance out from Canaan. Bruce went on back to town to wait for Old Bernique at the hotel. Piney took the path that led up to the bluff behind Madeira Place. As he came through the Madeira grounds Crittenton Madeira came out of the house and stood on the back porch, regarding him quizzically.
The rain was coming on fast. All the east lay grey behind Steering, all the west grey before him as he moved away from the cross-roads. But out of the west rolled the melody of the carolling boy, the voice of one singing in the wilderness, young and undismayed. Under the cross-roads sign-post old Bernique sat his horse motionless for a time, looking after Steering.
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