Washington and his
brave compatriots; so do we."

"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!" shrieked Oncle Jazon in a piercing treble,
tiptoeing and shaking his cap recklessly under M. Roussillon's nose.

The orator winced and jerked his head back, but nobody saw it, save
perhaps Father Gibault, who laughed heartily.

Great sayings come suddenly, unannounced and unexpected. They have the
mysterious force of prophetic accident combined with happy economy of
phrasing. The southern blood in M. Roussillon's veins was effervescing
upon his brain; his tongue had caught the fine freedom and abandon of
inspired oratory. He towered and glowed; words fell melodiously from
his lips; his gestures were compelling, his visage magnetic. In
conclusion he said:

"Frenchmen, America is the garden-spot of the world and will one day
rule it, as did Rome of old. Where freedom makes her home, there is the
centre of power!"

It was in a little log church on the verge of a hummock overlooking a
marshy wild meadow. Westward for two thousand miles stretched the
unbroken prairies, woods, mountains, deserts reaching to the Pacific;
southward for a thousand miles rolled the green billows of the
wilderness to the warm Gulf shore; northward to the pole and eastward
to the thin fringe of settlements beyond the mountains, all was
houseless solitude.

If the reader should go to Vincennes to-day and walk southward along
Second Street to its intersection with Church Street, the spot then
under foot would be probably very near where M. Roussillon stood while
uttering his great sentence. Mind you, the present writer does not
pretend to know the exact site of old Saint Xavier church. If it could
be fixed beyond doubt the spot should have an imperishable monument of
Indiana stone.

When M, Roussillon ceased speaking the audience again exhausted its
vocal resources; and then Father Gibault called upon each man to come
forward and solemnly pledge his loyalty to the American cause. Not one
of them hesitated.

Meantime a woman was doing her part in the transformation of Post
Vincennes from a French-English picket to a full-fledged American fort
and town. Madame Godere, finding out what was about to happen, fell to
work making a flag in imitation of that under which George Washington
was fighting. Alice chanced to be in the Godere home at the time and
joined enthusiastically in the sewing. It was an exciting task. Their
fingers trembled while they worked, and the thread,