While Vesper was waiting for the conclusion of the story, a burst of joyous cachinnation assured him that it had already come. Mirabelle Marie was again rocking herself to and fro in immoderate delight, her head at each dip forward nearly touching her knees, while her husband was slapping his side vigorously.
Vesper laughed himself. Truly there were many different orders of mind in the universe. He saw nothing amusing in the reported exploits of the liar Duckfoot. They also would not have brought a smile to the face of his beautiful Rose, yet the Corbineaus, or Watercrows, as they translated their name in order to make themselves appear English, found these stories irresistibly comical. It was a blessing for them that they did so, otherwise the whole realm of humor might be lost to them; and he was going off in a dreamy speculation with regard to their other mental proclivities, when he was roused by another story from his hostess.
"Duckfoot is a mason by trade, an' onct he built a chimbley for a woman. 'Make a good draught,' says she. 'You bet,' says he, an' he built his chimbley an' runs away; as he runs he looks back, an' there was the woman's duds that was hangin' by the fire goin' up the chimbley. He had built such a draught that nothin' could stay in the kitchen, so she had to go down on her knees an' beg him to change it."
"To beg him to change it," vociferated Claude, and he soundly smacked his unresisting knee. "Oh, Lord, 'ow funny!" and he roared with laughter so stimulating that he forgot his fear of Vesper and Bidiane, and, boldly lighting his pipe, put it between his lips.
Mirabelle Marie, whose flow of eloquence it was difficult to check, related several other tales of Duckfoot Bill. Many times, before the railway in this township of Clare had been built, he had told them of his uncle, who had, he said, a magnificent residence in Louisiana, with a park full of valuable animals called skunks. These animals he had never fully described, and they were consequently enveloped in a cloud of admiration and mystery, until a horde of them came with the railroad to the Bay, when the credulous Acadiens learned for themselves what they really were.
During the recital of this tale, Bidiane's face went from disapproval to disgust, and at last, diving under the table, she seized a basket and went to work vigorously, as if the occupation of her fingers would ease the perturbation of her mind.
Vesper watched her closely. She was picking out the threads of old cotton and woollen garments that had been cut into small pieces. These threads would be washed, laid out on the grass to dry, and then be carded, and spun, and woven over again, according to a thrifty custom of the Acadiens, and made into bedcovers, stockings, and cloth. The child must possess some industry, for this work—"pickings," as it was called—was usually done by the women. In brooding silence the little girl listened to Mirabelle Marie's final tale of Duckfoot Bill, whose wife called out to him, one day, from the yard, that there was a flock of wild geese passing over the house. Without troubling to go out, he merely discharged his gun up the chimney beside which he sat, and the ramrod, carelessly being left in, killed a certain number of geese.
"How many do you guess that ramrod run through?"
Vesper good-naturedly guessed two.