The Mothers of Honoré | Page 3

on his own resources as cook.
Honoré acknowledged with hearty gratitude the supper which Melinda Crée had baked and her granddaughter had carried into the bereaved house while its inmates were out.
"They not get fish pie like that in de war. Jules, he say it is better than poor Thérèse could make," Honoré added, handsomely, with large unsuspicion.
Clethera shook a finger in his face.
"Honoré McCarty, you got watch dat Jules! I got to watch Melinda. Simon Leslie, he have come by and put it in Jules' head since de funer'l! I hear it, me."
The young man's face changed through the dusk.
He braced his back against the fence and breathed the deep sigh of tried patience.
"Honoré, how many mothers is it you have already?"
"I have not count'," said the young man, testily.
"Count dem mothers," ordered Clethera.
"Maman," he began the enumeration, reverently. His companion allowed him a minute's silence after the mention of that fine woman.
"One," she tallied.
"Nex'," proceeded Honoré, "poor Jules is involve' with de Chippewa woman."
"Two," clinched Clethera.
The Chippewa squaw was a sore theme. She had entered Jules's wigwam in good faith; but during one of his merry carouses, while both Honoré and the priest were absent, he traded her off to a North Shore man for a horse. Long after she tramped away across the frozen strait with her new possessor, and all trace of her was lost, Jules had the grace to be shamefaced about the scandal; but he got a good bargain in the horse.
"Then there is Lavelotte's widow," continued Honoré.
"Three," marked Clethera.
Yes, there was Lavelotte's widow, the worst of all. She whipped little Jules unmercifully, and if Honoré 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 Thérèse." Honoré did not say, "Last, Thérèse." 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. Honoré 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 Thérèse home, and saw that Honoré 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 Honoré. 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."
"She have only life interest? By gar! I t'ink I pay somebody twenty dollar to kill her!"
But lacking both twenty dollars and determination, he lived peaceably with Thérèse 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.
"Honoré, it a scandal' t'ing, to get marry."
"Me, I t'ink so too," assented Honoré.
"Jules McCarty have disgrace' his son!"
"Melinda Crée," retorted Honoré, 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 Honoré 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 Honoré.
"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 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