The fat woman had sunk exhausted on the doorstep of the yellow house. "Nannichette, I be dèche if I go a step furder, till you gimme checque chouse pour mouiller la langue" (give me something to wet my tongue).
"All right," said Nannichette, in the soft, drawling tones that she had caught from the Indians, and she brought her out a pitcher of milk.
Mirabelle Marie put the pitcher to her lips, and gurgled over the milk a joyful thanksgiving that she had got away from the rough road, and the rougher wind, that raged like a bull; then she said, "Your husband is away?"
"No," said Nannichette, in some embarrassment, "he ain't, but come in."
Mirabelle Marie rose, and with her companions went into the house, while Bidiane and Claudine crept to the windows.
"Dear me, this is the best Indian house that I ever saw," said Bidiane, taking a survey, through the cheap lace curtains, of the sewing-machine, the cupboard of dishes, and the neat tables and chairs inside. Then she glided on in a voyage of discovery around the house, skirting the diminutive bedrooms, where half a dozen children lay snoring in comfortable beds, and finally arriving outside a shed, where a tall, slight Indian was on his knees, planing staves for a tub by the light of a lamp on a bracket above him.
His wife's work lay on the floor. When not suffering from the gold fever, she twisted together the dried strips of maple wood and scented grasses, and made baskets that she sold at a good price.
The Indian did not move an eyelid, but he plainly saw Bidiane and Claudine, and wondered why they were not with the other women, who, in some uneasiness of mind, stood in the doorway, looking at him over each other's shoulders.