enormous
shoe buckles, stiff stocks, velvet and satin coats and beaver hats were
often seen. Ladies rejoiced in new importations, and in winter went
decked in costly furs. Even the French damsels relaxed their plain
attire and made pictures with their bright kerchiefs tied coquettishly
over curling hair, and they often smiled back at the garrison soldiers
or the troops on parade. The military gardens were improved and became
places of resort on pleasant afternoons, and the two hundred houses
inside the pickets increased a little, encroaching more and more on the
narrow streets. The officers' houses were a little grander; some of the
traders indulged in more show and their wives put on greater airs and
finer gowns and gave parties. The Campeau house was venerable even then,
built as it was on the site of Cadillac's headquarters and abounding in
many strange legends, and there were rude pictures of the Canoe with
Madame Cadillac, who had made the rough voyage with her ladies and come
to a savage wilderness out of love for her husband; and the old, long,
low Cass house that had sheltered so many in the Pontiac war, and the
Governor's house on St. Anne's street, quite grand with its two stories
and peaked roof, with the English colors always flying.

Many of the houses were plastered over the rough hewn cedar lath, others
were just of the smaller size trees split in two and the interstices
filled in. Many were lined with birch bark, with borders of beautiful
ash and silver birch. Chimneys were used now, great wide spaces at one
end filled in with seats. In winter furs were hung about and often
dropped over the windows at night, which were always closed with tight
board shutters as soon as dusk set in, which gave the streets a gloomy
aspect and in nowise assisted a prowling enemy. A great solid oaken
door, divided in the middle with locks and bars that bristled with
resistance, was at the front.

But inside they were comfortable and full of cheer. Wooden benches and
chairs, some of the former with an arm and a cushion of spruce twigs
covered with a bear or wolf skin, though in the finer houses there were
rush bottoms and curiously stained splints with much ornamental Indian
work. A dresser in the living room displayed not only Queen's ware, but
such silver and pewter as the early colonists possessed, and there were
pictures curiously framed, ornaments of wampum and shells and fine bead
work. The family usually gathered her