Read Ebook: The Mothers Of Honoré From Mackinac And Lake Stories 1899 by Catherwood Mary Hartwell

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Ebook has 117 lines and 7021 words, and 3 pages

"Three," marked Clethera.

Yes, there was Lavelotte's widow, the worst of all. She whipped little Jules unmercifully, and if Honor? had not taken his part and stood before him, she might have ended by being Jules's widow. She stripped him of his whole fortune, four hundred dollars, when he finally obtained a separation from her. But instead of curing him, this experience only whetted his zest for another wife.

"And there is Th?r?se." Honor? did not say, "Last, Th?r?se." While Jules lived and his wives died, or were traded off or divorced, there would be no last.

"It is four," declared Clethera; and the count was true. Honor? had taken Jules in hand like a father, after the adventure with Lavelotte's widow. He made his parent work hard at the boat, and in winter walked him to and from mass literally with hand on collar. He encouraged the little man, moreover, with a half interest in their house on the beach, which long-accumulated earnings of the boat paid for. But all this care was thrown away; though after Jules brought Th?r?se home, and saw that Honor? was not appeased by a woman's cooking, he had qualms about the homestead, and secretly carried the deed back to the original owner.

"I want you keep my part of de deed," he explained. "I not let some more women rob Honor?. My wife, if she get de deed in her han', she might sell de whole t'ing!"

"Why, no, Jules, she couldn't sell your real estate!" the former owner declared. "She would only have a life interest in your share."

"You say she couldn't sell it?"

"No. She would have nothing but a life interest."

But lacking both twenty dollars and determination, he lived peaceably with Th?r?se until she died a natural death, on that occasion proudly doing his whole duty as a man and a mourner.

Remembering these affairs, which had not been kept secret from anybody on the island, Clethera spoke out under conviction.

"Honor?, it a scandal' t'ing, to get marry."

"Me, I t'ink so too," assented Honor?.

"Jules McCarty have disgrace' his son!"

"Melinda Cr?e," retorted Honor?, obliged to defend his own, "she take a little 'usban' honly nineteen."

"She 'ave no chance like Jules; she is oblige' to wait and take what invite her."

The voices of children from other quarter-breed cottages, playing along the beach, added cheer to the sweet darkness. Clethera and Honor? sat silently enjoying each other's company, unconscious that their aboriginal forefathers had courted in that manner, sitting under arbors of branches.

"Why do peop' want to get marry?" propound ed Clethera.

"I don't know," said Honor?.

"Me, if some man hask me, I box his ear! I have know you all my life--but don' you never hask me to get marry!"

"I not such a fool," heartily responded Honor?. "You and me, we have seen de folly. I not form de habit, like Jules."

"But what we do, Honor?, to keep dat Jules and dat Melinda apart?"

Though they discussed many plans, the sequel showed that nothing effectual could be done. All their traditions and instincts were against making themselves disagreeable or showing discourtesy to their elders. The young man's French and Irish and Chippewa blood, and the young girl's French and Cr?e blood exhausted all their inherited diplomacy. But as steadily as the waters set like a strong tide through the strait, in spite of wind which combed them to ridging foam, the rapid courtship of age went on.

In carrying laundered clothing through the village street, Melinda Cr?e was carefully chaperoned by her granddaughter, and Honor? kept Jules under orders in the boat. But of early mornings and late twilights there was no restraining the twittering widower.

"Melinda 'tend to her work and is behave if Jules let her alone," Clethera reported to Honor?. "But he slip around de garden and talk over de back fence, and he is by de ironing-board de minute my back is turn'! If he belong to me, I could 'mos' whip him!"

"Jules McCarty," declared Honor?, with some bitterness, "when he fix his min' to marry some more, he is not turn' if he is hexcommunicate'!"

Jules, indeed, became so bold that he crowded across the stile through the very conferences of the pair united to prevent him; and his loud voice could be heard beside Melinda's ironing-board, proclaiming in the manner of a callow young suitor.

"Some peop' like separate us, Melinda, but we not let them."

The conflict of Honor? and Clethera with Jules and Melinda ended one day in August. There had been no domestic clamor in this silent grapple of forces. The young man used no argument except maxims and morals and a tightening of authority; the young girl permitted neither neighboring maids nor the duties of religion to lure her off guard. It may be said of any French half-breed that he has all the instincts of gentility except an inclination to lying, and that arises from excessive politeness.

Honor? came to the fence at noon and called Clethera. In his excitement he crossed the stile and stood on her premises.

"It no use, Clethera. Jules have tell me this morning he have arrange' de marriage."

Clethera glanced behind her at the house she called home, and threw herself in Honor?'s arms, as she had often done in childish despairs. Neither misunderstood the action, and it relieved them to shed a few tears on each other's necks. This truly Latin outburst being over, they stood apart and wiped their eyes on their sleeves.

"It no use," exclaimed Clethera, "to set a good examp' to your grandmother!"

"I not wait any longer now," announced Honor?, giving rein to fierce eagerness. "I go to de war to-day."

"But de camp is move'," objected Clethera.

"I have pass' de examin', and I know de man to go to when I am ready; he promis' to get me into de war. Jules have de sails up now, ready to take me across to de train."

"But who will have de boat when you are gone, Honor??"

"Jules. And he bring Melinda to de house."

"She not come. She not leave her own house. She take her 'usban' in."

"Then Jules must rent de house. You not detest poor Jules?"

"I not detest him like de hudder one."

"Au 'voir, Clethera."

"Au 'voir, Honor?."

They shook hands, the young man wringing him-self away with the animation of one who goes, the girl standing in the dull anxiety of one who stays. War, so remote that she had heard of it indifferently, rushed suddenly from the tropics over the island.

"Are your clothes all mend' and ready, Honor??"

But what thought can a young man give to his clothes when about to wrap himself in glory? He is politely tapping at the shed window of the Indian woman, and touching his cap in farewell and gallant capitulation, and with long-limbed sweeping haste, unusual in a quarter-breed, he is gone to the docks, with a bundle under one arm, waving his hand as he passes. All the women and children along the street would turn out to see him go to the war if his intention were known, and even summer idlers about the bazars would look at him with new interest.

Clethera could not imagine the moist and horrid heat of those southern latitudes into which Honor? departed to throw himself. Shifting mists on the lake rim were no vaguer than her conception of her country's mighty undertaking. But she could feel; and the life she had lived to that day was wrenched up by the roots, leaving her as with a bleeding socket.

Clethera's tubs were under the trees. She paid no attention to what befell her, or to her grandmother, who called her out of the rain. It came like a powder of dust, and then a moving, blanched wall, pushing islands of flattened mist before it. Under a steady pour the waters turned dull green, and lightened shade by shade as if diluting an infusion of grass. Waves began to come in regular windrows. Though Clethera told herself savagely she not care for anything in de world, her Indian eye took joy of these sights. The shower-bath from the trees she endured without a shiver.

Jules sat beside Melinda to be comforted He wept for Honor?, and praised his boy, gasconading with time-worn boasts.

"I got de hang of him, and now I got to part! But de war will end, now Honor? have gone into it. His gran'fodder was such a fighter when de British come to take de island, he turn' de cannon and blow de British off. The gran'fodder of Honor? was a fine man. He always keep de bes' liquors and by wines on his sideboa'd."

When Honor? had been gone twenty-four hours, and Jules was still idling like a boy undriven by his task-master, leaving the boat to rock under bare poles at anchor on the rise and fall of the water, Clethera went into their empty house. It contained three rooms, and she laid violent hands on male housekeeping. The service was almost religious, like preparing linen for an altar. It comforted her unacknowledged anguish, which increased rather than diminished, the unrest of which she resented with all her stoic Indian nature.

Nets, sledge-harness, and Honor?'s every-day clothes hung on his whitewashed wall. The most touching relic of any man is the hat he has worn. Honor?'s cap crowned the post of his bed like a wraith. The room might have been a young hermit's cell in a cave, or a tunnel in the evergreens, it was so simple and bare of human appointments. Clethera stood with the broom in one hand, and tipped forward a piece of broken looking-glass on his shaving-shelf. A new, unforeseen Clethera, whom she had never been obliged to deal with before, gave her a desperate, stony stare out of a haggard face. She was young, her skin had not a line. But it was as if she had changed places with her wrinkled grandmother, to whom the expression of complacent maidenhood now belonged.

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