The Mothers of Honoré | Page 4

responded Honoré. "You and me, we have
seen de folly. I not form de habit, like Jules."
"But what we do, Honoré, 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 Crée 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 Crée
was carefully chaperoned by her granddaughter, and Honoré 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 Honoré. "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 Honoré, 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 Honoré 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.
Honoré 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 Honoré'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 Honoré, 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, Honoré?"
"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, Honoré."
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, Honoré?"

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 Honoré 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