Charle' shrunk from his height, and his mouth opened like a fish's. “But I thought you would be proud of it.”
“Me, what do I care how many men you have thrown down? You do not like me any better because you have thrown down all the men in your brigade.”
“She is jealous—jealous of a feather!”
Humbled as he was by her tongue, the young voyageur felt delighted at giving his wife so trivial a rival.
He settled his belt and approached her and bowed. “Madame, permit me to offer you this black quill, which I have won for your sake, and which I boasted of to my masters that they might know you have not thrown yourself away on the poorest creature in Mackinac. Destroy it, madame. It was only the poor token of my love for you.”
Graceful and polite as all the voyageurs were, Charle' Charette was the prince of them with his big sweet presence as he bent. 'Tite flew at him and flung her arms around his neck. After the manner of Latin peoples, they instantly shed tears upon each other, and the black feather was crushed between their breasts.
THE COBBLER IN THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN
