s
picked out to make another mound in the Indian burying-ground, Jenieve
was so fiercely elated that she was afraid to confess it to the
priest. Strange matches were made on the frontier, and Indian wives
were commoner than any other kind; but through the whole mortifying
existence of this Indian husband Jenieve avoided the sight of him, and
called her mother steadily Mama Lalotte. The girl had remained with
her grandmother, while Francois Iroquois carried off his wife to the
Indian village on a western height of the island. Her grandmother had
died, and Jenieve continued to keep house on the beach, having always
with her one or more of the half-breed babies, until the plunge
of Francois Iroquois allowed her to bring them all home with their
mother. There was but one farm on the island, and Jenieve had all the
spinning which the sheep afforded. She was the finest spinner in that
region. Her grandmother had taught her to spin with a little wheel,
as they still do about Quebec. Her pay was small. There was not much
money then in the country, but bills of credit on the Fur Company's
store were the same as cash, and she managed to feed her mother and
the Indian's family. Fish were to be had for the catching, and
she could get corn-meal and vegetables for her soup pot in partial
exchange for her labor. The luxuries of life on the island were air
and water, and the glories of evening and morning. People who could
buy them got such gorgeous clothes as were brought by the Company.
But usually Jenieve felt happy enough when she put on her best red
homespun bodice and petticoat for mass or to go to dances. She did
wish for shoes. The ladies at the fort had shoes, with heels which
clicked when they danced. Jenieve could dance better, but she always
felt their eyes on her moccasins, and came to regard shoes as the
chief article of one's attire.

Though the joy of shoeing her brothers was not to be put off, she
had not intended to let them keep on these precious brogans of
civilization while they played beside the water. But she suddenly saw
Mama Lalotte walking along the street near the lake with old Michel
Pensonneau. Beyond these moving figures were many others, of engages
and Indians, swarming in front of the Fur Company's great warehouse.
Some were talking and laughing; others were in a line, bearing bales
of furs from bateaux just arrived at the log-and-stone wharf stretched
from the centre of the bay. But all of them, and cu