"Now, Claudine," she said, "you must be tired. Give me your rake, and do you go up to the house and rest."
"Yes, go, Claudine," said Mirabelle Marie, from her height, "you look drug out."
"I am not tired," said Claudine, in French, "and I shall not give my rake to you, Bidiane. You are not used to work."
Bidiane bubbled over into low, rippling laughter. "I delicate,—ah, that is good! Give me your rake, Claude. You go up to the barn now, do you not?"
Claude nodded, and extended a strong hand to assist his wife in sliding to the ground. Then, accompanied by his boys, he jogged slowly after the wagon to the barn, where the oxen would be unyoked, and the grasping pitcher would lift the load in two or three mouthfuls to the mows.
Bidiane threw down her rake and ran to the fence for some raspberries, and while her hands were busy with the red fruit, her bright eyes kept scanning the road. She watched a foot-passenger coming slowly from the station, pausing at the corner, drifting in a leisurely way towards the inn, and finally, after a glance at Mirabelle Marie's conspicuous gown, climbing the fence, and moving deliberately towards her.
"H'm—a snake in the grass," murmured Bidiane, keeping an eye on the new arrival, and presently she, too, made her way towards her aunt and Claudine, who had ceased work and were seated on the hay.
"This is Nannichette," said Mirabelle Marie, somewhat apprehensively, when Bidiane reached them.
"Yes, I know," said the girl, and she nodded stiffly to the woman, who was almost as fat and as easy-going as Mirabelle Marie herself.
Nannichette was half Acadien and half English, and she had married a pure Indian who lived back in the woods near the Sleeping Water Lake. She was not a very desirable acquaintance for Mirabelle Marie, but she was not a positively bad woman, and no one would think of shutting a door against her, although her acquaintance was not positively sought after by the scrupulous Acadiens.