Perritaut, which, from proximity, was more of a rival than Metropolisville.  After this diversion had weakened Perritaut, it became of great consequence to secure even so small an influence as that of Dave Sawney.  Plausaby persuaded Dave to cawntrack for the delivery of his influence, and Dave was not a little delighted to be flattered and paid at the same time.  He explained to the enlightened people in his neighborhood that Squire Plausaby was a-goin’ to do big things fer the kyounty; that the village of Metropolisville would erect a brick court-house and donate it; that Plausaby had already cawntracked to donate it to the kyounty free gratis.

This ardent support of Dave, who saw not only the price which the squire had cawntracked to pay him, but a furtherance of his suit with little Katy, as rewards of his zeal, would have turned the balance at once in favor of Metropolisville, had it not been for a woman.  Was there 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.