ever a
war, since the days of the Greek hobby-horse, since the days of Rahab's
basket indeed, in which a woman did not have some part? It is said that a
woman should not vote, because she can not make war; but that is just
what a woman can do; she can make war, and she can often decide it. There
came into this contest between Metropolisville and its rival, not a Helen
certainly, but a woman. Perritaut was named for an old French trader, who
had made his fortune by selling goods to the Indians on its site, and who
had taken him an Indian wife--it helped trade to wed an Indian--and
reared a family of children who were dusky, and spoke both the Dakota and
the French _a la Canadien_. M. Perritaut had become rich, and yet his
riches could not remove a particle of the maternal complexion from those
who were to inherit the name and wealth of the old trader. If they should
marry other half-breeds, the line of dusky Perritauts might stretch out
the memory of a savage maternity to the crack of doom. _Que voulez-vous?_
They must not many half-breeds. Each generation must make advancement
toward a Caucasian whiteness, in a geometric ratio, until the Indian
element should be reduced by an infinite progression toward nothing. But
how? It did not take long for Perritaut _pere_ to settle that question.
_Voila tout._ The young men should seek white wives. They had money.
They might marry poor girls, but white ones. But the girls? _Eh bien_!
Money should wash them also, or at least money should bleach their
descendants. For money is the Great Stain-eraser, the Mighty Detergent,
the Magic Cleanser. And the stain of race is not the only one that money
makes white as snow. So the old gentleman one day remarked to some
friends who drank wine with him, that he would geeve one ten tousant
tollare, begare, to te man tat maree his oltest daughtare, Mathilde. _Eh
bien_, te man must vary surelee pe w'ite and _re_-spect-_ah_-ble. Of
course this confidential remark soon spread abroad, as it was meant to
spread abroad. It came to many ears. The most utterly worthless white
men, on hearing it, generally drew themselves up in pride and vowed
they'd see the ole frog-eatin' Frenchman hung afore they'd many his
Injin. They'd druther marry a Injin than a nigger, but they couldn' be
bought with no money to trust their skelp with a Injin.

Not so our friend Dave. He wurn't afeared of no Injin, he said; sartainly
not of one what had been weakened down to half