"Come here. See what I have for you."
"What is it?" inquired the eldest, gazing betwixt the hairs scattered on his face; he stood with his back to the wind. His bare shins reddened in the wash of the lake, standing beyond its rim of shining gravel.
"Shoes," answered Jenieve, in a note triumphant over fate.
"What's shoes?" asked the smallest half-breed, tucking up his smock around his middle.
"They are things to wear on your feet," explained Jenieve; and her red-skinned half-brothers heard her with incredulity. She had told their mother, in their presence, that she intended to buy the children some shoes when she got pay for her spinning; and they thought it meant fashions from the Fur Company's store to wear to mass, but never suspected she had set her mind on dark-looking clamps for the feet.
"You must try them on," said Jenieve, and they all stepped experimentally from the water, reluctant to submit. But Jenieve was mistress in the house. There is no appeal from a sister who is a father to you, and even a substitute for your living mother.
"You sit down first, François, and wipe your feet with this cloth."
The absurdity of wiping his feet before he turned in for the night tickled François, though he was of a strongly aboriginal cast, and he let himself grin. Jenieve helped him struggle to encompass his lithe feet with the clumsy brogans.
"You boys are living like Indians."
"We are Indians," asserted François.