“What! surely Slowfoot has not taken to being unkind to you?”
“O no! Slowfoot could not be unkind, but she is unhappy; she has lost her cheerful looks; she does not take everything as she once did; she does not now let everything go anyhow with that cheerful resignation which was once her delightful characteristic. She no longer hands the pipe of peace to our little one—indeed she refuses to let it have the pipe at all, though the poor child cries for it, and comes to me secretly, when Slowfoot is out of the way, to beg for a draw. Then, she scolds me—no, she does not scold. Slowfoot cannot scold. She is too amiable—but she remonstrates, and that is worse than scolding, for it enlists myself against myself. O! I am now miserable. My days of peace are gone!”
“This is all very sad, La Certe,” said Dan, in a tone of sympathy. “What does she remonstrate about?”
“About my laziness! She does it very kindly, very gently—so like her old self!—but she does it. She says, ‘Husband; we have gone on this way too long. We must change. You must change. You are lazy!’”
“Well, La Certe,” said Dan, “I’m afraid that Slowfoot is right.”
“I know she is right!” retorted the half-breed, with more of exasperation in his manner than his friend had ever before seen in him. “When that which is said of one is false, one can afford to smile, but when it is true what can one say? Yet it is hard—very hard. You are full of energy; you love to expend it, and you search for work. It is natural—and what is natural must be right. So, I am full of laziness. I love to indulge it, and I search for repose. That is also natural, and what is natural must be right. Voilà!”
“Then I suppose your love for repose,” returned Dan, “will oblige you to decline an offer which I thought of making to you.”
“What is that?”
“To go with me on a shooting expedition to Lake Winnipeg for a week or two.”
“O no! I will not decline that,” returned La Certe, brightening up. “Shooting is not labour. It is amusement, with labour sufficient to make after-repose delightful. And I will be glad to leave my home for a time, for it is no longer the abode of felicity.”