The Cobbler In The Devils Kitchen | Page 6

fixed state as a voyageur--all these things were against him. He could not adjust himself to any facts, and his feelings sometimes approached the melting state. It was no use to war with Owen Cunning, whom he was ashamed of handling roughly. The cobbler sat with swollen and bandaged face, talking out of a slit, still bullying him.
But the time came for his brigade to go out, and then there was action, decision, positive life once more. It went far northward, and was first to depart, in order to reach winter-quarters before snow should fly.
At the log dock the boats waited, twelve of them in this outfit, each one a mighty Argo, rowed by a dozen pairs of oars, and with centre-piece for stepping a mast. Hundreds of pounds they could carry, and a crew of fifteen men. The tarpaulin used for a night covering and to shelter the trading-goods from storms was large as the roof of a house.
Quiescent on lapping water they rested, their loads and each man's baggage of twenty or fewer pounds packed tightly to place.
The cobbler from the Devil's Kitchen was in the crowd thronging dock and shore. The villagers were there, saying farewells, and all the voyageurs who were soon to go out in other brigades snuffed as war-horses ready for the charge. The life of the woods, which was their true life, again drew them. They could scarcely wait. Dancing and love-making suddenly cloyed; for a man was made to conquer the wilderness and take the spoils of the earth. "Woodsman's habits returned upon them. The frippery of the island was dropped like the withes which bound Samson. Their companions the Indians were also making ready the canoes. Blackbird stood erect behind the elbow of John McGillis as he took leave of his cousin the cobbler.
"Do ye moind, Owen," exclaimed John, turning from the interests of active life to that which had disturbed his spirit, convinced unalterably of his own widowed state, yet harrowed unspeakably, "ye promised to show me that word from the old counthry before the boats wint out."
"I niver promised to show ye any word from the old counthry," responded Owen, having his mouth free of bandages and both eyes for the boats.
"Te tould me ye had a towken from the old counthry."
"I niver tould ye I had a towken from the old counthry."
"Ye did tell me ye had a towken."
"I have."
"Ye said it proved I was not a widdy."
"I did."
"Show me that same, thin."
"I will."
Owen looked steadily past John's shoulder at Blackbird, and laid in John's hand a small gold coin with a hole in it, on one side of which was rudely scratched the outline of a bird.
John McGillis's face burned red, and many expressions besides laughter crossed it. Like a child detected in fault, he looked sheepishly at Owen and glanced behind his shoulder. The faithful sunset-tinted face of Blackbird, immovable as a fixed star, regarded the battered cobbler as it might have regarded a great manitou when the island was young.
"How did you come by this, Owen?"
"I come by it from one that had throuble. Has yerself iver seen it before, John McGillis?"
"I have."
"Is it a towken that ye're not a widdy?"
"It is."
The boats went out, and Blackbird sat in her Irish husband's boat, on his baggage. Oars flashed, and the commandant's boat led the way. Then the life of the Northwest rose like a great wave--the voyageurs' song chanted by a hundred and fifty throats, with a chorus of thousands on the shore:
[Illustration: Cobbler in the Devil's Kitchen 076]
Dans les chan - tiers nous hi - ver - ne - rons!
Dans lea chan - tiers nous hi - ver - ne - rons!
When Owen returned to his Kitchen he found a robe of the finest beaver folded and laid on his shoemaker's bench.
"Begorra!" observed the cobbler, shaking it out and rubbing it against his cheek, "she has paid me a beaver-shkin and the spalpeen wasn't worrth it. But she can kape him now till she has a moind to turn him out herself. Whin a man marries on a hay then, wid praste or widout praste, let him shtick to his haythen."

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