The Mothers of Honoré

Mothers Of Honoré, by Mary
Hartwell Catherwood

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Title: The Mothers Of Honoré From "Mackinac And Lake Stories",
1899
Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23253]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MOTHERS OF HONORÉ ***

Produced by David Widger

THE MOTHERS OF HONORÉ
From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899

By Mary Hartwell Catherwood
The sun was shining again after squalls, and the strait showed violet,
green, red, and bronze lines, melting and intermingling each changing
second. Metallic lustres shone as if some volcanic fountain on the
lake-bed were spraying the surface. Jules McCarty stood at his gate,
noting this change in the weather with one eye. He was a small, old
man, having the appearance of a mummied boy. His cheek-bones shone
apple-red, and his partial blindness had merely the effect of a prolonged
wink. Jules was keeping melancholy holiday in his best clothes, the
well-preserved coat parting its jaunty tails a little below the middle of
his back.
Another old islander paused at the gate in passing, The two men shook
their heads at each other.
"I went to your wife's funeral this morning, Jules," said the passer,
impressing on the widower's hearing an important fact which might
have escaped his one eye.
"You was at de funer'l? Did you see Thérèse?"
"Yes, I saw her."
"Ah, what a fat woman dat was! I make some of de peop' feel her arm.
I feed her well."
The other old man smiled, but he was bound to say,
"I'm sorry for you, Jules."
"Did you see me at de church?"
"Yes, I went to the church."
"You t'ink I feel bad--eh?"
"I thought you felt pretty bad."

"You go to de graveyard, too?"
"No," admitted his sympathizer, reluctantly, "I didn't go to the
graveyard."
"But dat was de fines'. You ought see me at de graveyard. You t'ink I
feel bad at de church--I raise hell at de graveyard."
The friend shuffled his feet and coughed behind his hand.
"Yes, I feel bad, me," ruminated the bereaved man. "You get used to
some woman in de house and not know where to get anodder."
"Haven't you had your share, Jules?" inquired his friend, relaxing
gladly to banter.
"I have one fine wife, maman to Honoré," enumerated Jules, "and de
squaw, and Lavelotte's widow, and Thérèse. It is not much."
"I've often wondered why you didn't take Me-linda Crée. You've no
objection to Indians. She's next door to you, and she knows how to
nurse in sickness, besides being a good washer and ironer. The summer
folks say she makes the best fish pies on the island."
"It is de trut'!" exclaimed Jules, a new light shining in his dim blue eye
as he turned it towards the house of Melinda Crée. The weather-worn,
low domicile was bowered in trees. There was a convenient stile two
steps high in the separating fence, and it had long been made a
thoroughfare by the families. On the top step sat Clethera, Melinda
Crée's granddaughter. Clethera had been Honoré's playmate since
infancy. She was a lithe, dark girl, with more of her French father in her
than of her half-breed mother. Some needle-work busied her hands, but
her ear caught every accent of the conference at the gate. She flattened
her lips, and determined to tell Honoré as soon as he came in with the
boat. Honoré was the favorite skipper of the summer visitors. He went
out immediately after the funeral to earn money to apply on his last
mother's burial expenses.

When the old men parted, Clethera examined her grandmother with
stealthy eyes in a kind of aboriginal reconnoitring. Melinda Cree's
black hair and dark masses of wrinkles showed through a sashless shed
window where she stood at her ironing-board. Her stoical eyelids were
lowered, and she moved with the rhythmical motion of the
smoothing-iron. Whether she had overheard the talk, or was meditating
on her own matrimonial troubles, was impossible to gather from facial
muscles rigid as carved wood. Melinda Crée was one of the few
pure-blooded Indians on the island. If she was fond of anything in the
world, her preference had not declared itself, though previous to
receiving her orphaned granddaughter into her house she had consented
to become the bride of a drunken youth in his teens. This incipient
husband--before he got drowned in a squall off Detour, thereby saving
his aged