“We?” replied Hugh questioningly.
“Truly. There are two suits and six pairs of moccasins. Look.” He held up one of the shirts. “This she made larger than the other. She knows you are the elder and must be the larger.” He handed the shirt to Hugh, following it with a pair of the leggings. Looking over the moccasins, he selected the larger ones and gave them also to his white brother. “They are better to wear in a canoe than boots,” he said.
For a moment Hugh was silent with embarrassment. He was touched by the generosity of the Indian woman, who had put as much time and care on these clothes for her unknown stepson as upon those for her own boy. He flushed, however, at the thought of accepting anything from the squaw who had taken his mother’s place in his father’s life. Yet to decline the gift would be to offer a deadly insult not only to the Indian woman but to her son as well.
“I am obliged to your mother,” Hugh stammered. “It was—kind of her.”
Blaise made no other reply than a nod. He appeared pleased with the appearance and quality of the clothes, but took it as a matter of course that his mother should make them for Hugh as well as for himself.
“I wish she had left more food,” he said after a moment, “but at this time of the year food is scarce. That manomin is all that remained of the harvest of the autumn. We have eaten much of our food. We must fish when we can.”
“Can’t we buy corn and pork from the traders at the Grand Portage?” Hugh inquired.
Blaise shook his head doubtfully. “We will try,” he said.
He put the food back in the mooseskin bag and hung it on a tree. Then he turned to Hugh and said softly and questioningly, “You wish to see where we laid him?”
Hugh nodded, a lump rising in his throat, and followed his brother. Beyond the clump of spruces, in a tiny clearing, was Jean Beaupré’s grave. Hugh was surprised and horrified to see that it was, in appearance, an Indian grave. Poles had been stuck in the ground on either side, bent over and covered with birch bark. The boy’s face flushed with indignation.