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Updated: June 11, 2025
The girl did not hesitate. She intercepted the couple, and took her mother's arm in hers. The desperation of her act appeared to her while she was walking Mama Lalotte home; still, if nothing but force will restrain a parent, you must use force. Michel Pensonneau stood squarely in his moccasins, turning redder and redder at the laugh of his cronies before the warehouse.
"Do you take up for him, Mama Lalotte, in spite of me?" In the girl's rich brunette face the scarlet of the cheeks deepened. "Am I not more to you than Michel Pensonneau or any other engagé? He is old; he is past forty. Would I call him old if he were no more than twenty?" "Every one cannot be only twenty and a young agent," retorted her elder; and Jenieve's ears and throat reddened, also.
Our French people took up too easily, indeed, with savage ways; but Le Maudit Pensonneau was always full of his pranks. Oh, yes, Gabriel himself untied Celeste. She was wild with joy, and cried on Gabriel's shoulder; and all the young men who had taken their first communion with Gabriel and had played with this dear girl when she was a child, felt the tears come into their own eyes.
They left their meat, their horses, and arms. They were off like deer, straight through the woods to any place of safety. Every marksman had taken the Indian directly in front of him, but as they were abreast and the Puants in a circle, those four on the opposite side of the fire had been sheltered. Le Maudit Pensonneau scalped the red heads by the fire and hung the scalps in his belt.
He was dressed in new buckskins, and their tawny brightness made his florid cheeks more evident. Michel Pensonneau had been brought up by the Cadottes of Sault Ste. Marie, and he had rich relations at Cahokia, in the Illinois Territory. If he was not as good as the family of François Iroquois, he wanted to know the reason why. It is true, he was past forty and a bachelor.
All but Le Maudit Pensonneau. He was busy rounding up the horses. "Here's my uncle Larue's filly that was taken two weeks ago," said Le Maudit, calling from the hobbling place. "And here are the blacks that Ferland lost, and Pierre's pony half these horses are Caho' horses."
The light cloud of smoke, drawn up to the roof-hole, ascended behind her, forming an azure gray curtain against which her figure showed, round-wristed and full-throated. The starlike camp fires on Round Island were before her, and the incessant wash of the water on its pebbles was company to her. Somebody knocked on the front door. "It is that insolent Michel Pensonneau," thought Jenieve.
The addition of a schooner to the scattered fleet of sailboats, bateaux, and birch canoes made Jenieve laugh. It must have arrived from Sault Ste. Marie in the night. She had hopes of getting rid of Michel Pensonneau that very day. Since he was going to Cahokia, she felt stinging regret for the way she had treated him before the whole village; yet her mother could not be sacrificed to politeness.
Jenieve desired to grasp her by the shoulder and walk her into the house; but when the world, especially Jean Bati' McClure's wife, is watching to see how you manage an unruly mother, it is necessary to use some adroitness. "Will you please come here, dear Mama Lalotte? Toussaint wants you." "No, I don't!" shouted Toussaint. "It is Michel Pensonneau I want, to make me some boats."
"There is no harm in Madame Lalotte." "You are right, monsieur. Jean Bati' McClure's wife puts all the mischief in her head. She would even learn to spin, if that woman would let her alone." "And I never heard any harm of Michel Pensonneau. He is a good enough fellow, and he has more to his credit on the Company's books than any other engagé now on the island."
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