The Cobbler In The Devils Kitchen | Page 5

sweetbrier and loam. Again the violins excited
that throb of dancing feet, and John McGillis moved his arms in time to
the music.
"Out wid it, Owen. I'm losin' me shport."
"John McGillis, are ye not own cousin to me by raisin of marryin' on as
fine a colleen as iver shtepped in Ireland?"
"I am, Owen, I am."
"Did ye lave that same in sorrow, consatin' to fetch her out to Ameriky
whin yer fortune was made?"

"I did, Owen, I did."
"Whin ye got word of her death last year, was ye a broken-hearted
widdy or was ye not?"
"I was, Owen, I was." 46
"John McGillis, do ye call yerself a widdy now, or do ye not call
yerself a widdy?"
"I do, Owen, I do."
"Thin ye're the loire," and Owen slapped his face.
For a minute there was danger of manslaughter as they dealt each other
blows with sledge fists. Instead of clinching, they stood apart and
cudgelled fiercely with the knuckled hand. The first round ended in
blood, which John wiped from his face with a new bandanna, and
Owen flung contemptuously from his nose with finger and thumb. The
lax-muscled cobbler was no match for the fresh and vigorous voyageur,
and he knew it, but went stubbornly to work again, saying, grimly:
"I've shpiled yer face for the gu'urls the night, bedad."
They pounded each other without mercy, and again rested, Owen this
time leaning against the fence to breathe.
"John McGillis, are ye a widdy or are ye not a widdy?" he challenged,
as soon as he could speak.
"I am, Owen Cunnin', I am," maintained John.
"Thin I repate ye're the loire!" And once more they came to the proof,
until Owen lay upon the ground kicking to keep his opponent off.
"Will I bring ye the dhrop of whiskey, Owen?" suggested John,
tenderly.
His cousin by marriage crawled to the fence and sat up, without

replying.
"I've the flask in me pouch, Owen."
"Kape it there."
"But sure if ye foight wid me ye'll dhrink wid me?"
"I'll not dhrink a dhrop wid ye."
The cobbler panted heavily. "The loikes of you that do be goin' to
marry on a Frinch quarther-brade, desavin' her, and the father and the
mother and the praste, that you do be a widdy."
"I am a widdy, Owen."
The cobbler made a feint to rise, but sank back, repeating, at the top of
his breath, "Ye're the loire!"
"What do ye mane?" sternly demanded John. "Ye know I've had me
throuble. Ye know I've lost me wife in the old counthry. It's a year gone.
Was the praste that wrote the letther a loire?"
"I have a towken that ye're not the widdy ye think ye are."
John came to Owen and stooped over him, grasping him by the collar.
Candle-light across the street and stars in a steel-blue sky did not reveal
faces distinctly, but his shaking of the cobbler was an outcome of his
own inward convulsion. He belonged to a class in whom memory and
imagination were not strong, being continually taxed by a present of
large action crowded with changing images. But when his past rose up
it took entire possession of him.
"Why didn't ye tell me this before?"
"I've not knowed it the long time meself."
"What towken have ye got?"

"Towken enough for you and me."
"Show it to me."
"I will not."
"Ye're desavin' me. Ye have no towken."
"Thin marry on yer quarther-brade if ye dare!"
To be unsettled and uninterested in his surroundings was John
McGillis's portion during the remaining weeks of his stay on the island.
Half savage and half tender he sat in his barracks and smoked large
pipes of tobacco.
He tramped out nearly every evening to the Devil's Kitchen, and had
wordy battles, which a Frenchman would have called fights, with the
cobbler, though the conferences always ended by his producing his
ration and supping and smoking there. He coaxed his cousin to show
him the token, vacillating between hope of impossible news from a
wife he had every reason to believe dead, and indignation at being
made the sport of Owen's stubbornness. Learning in the Fur Company's
office that Owen had received news from the old country in the latest
mail sent out of New York, he was beside himself, and Amable Morin's
girl was forgotten. He began to believe he had never thought of her.
"Sure, the old man Morin and me had some words and a dhrink over it,
was all. I did but dance wid her and pinch her cheek. A man niver
knows what he does on Mackinac till he comes to himself in the winter
camps wid a large family on his moind."
"The blarney of your