“Why do peop' want to get marry?” propound ed Clethera.
“I don't know,” said Honoré.
“Me, if some man hask me, I box his ear! I have know you all my life—but don' you never hask me to get marry!”
“I not such a fool,” heartily responded Honoré. “You and me, we have seen de folly. I not form de habit, like Jules.”
“But what we do, Honoré, to keep dat Jules and dat Melinda apart?”
Though they discussed many plans, the sequel showed that nothing effectual could be done. All their traditions and instincts were against making themselves disagreeable or showing discourtesy to their elders. The young man's French and Irish and Chippewa blood, and the young girl's French and Crée blood exhausted all their inherited diplomacy. But as steadily as the waters set like a strong tide through the strait, in spite of wind which combed them to ridging foam, the rapid courtship of age went on.
In carrying laundered clothing through the village street, Melinda Crée was carefully chaperoned by her granddaughter, and Honoré kept Jules under orders in the boat. But of early mornings and late twilights there was no restraining the twittering widower.
“Melinda 'tend to her work and is behave if Jules let her alone,” Clethera reported to Honoré. “But he slip around de garden and talk over de back fence, and he is by de ironing-board de minute my back is turn'! If he belong to me, I could 'mos' whip him!”
“Jules McCarty,” declared Honoré, with some bitterness, “when he fix his min' to marry some more, he is not turn' if he is hexcommunicate'!”
Jules, indeed, became so bold that he crowded across the stile through the very conferences of the pair united to prevent him; and his loud voice could be heard beside Melinda's ironing-board, proclaiming in the manner of a callow young suitor.