Kiss of the Fur Queen

Abraham takes his sons on a canoe to a fish camp. While Abraham and Gabriel lift crates of gutted fish onto their canoe, Jeremiah refrains because the lifting may strain his fingers. Gabriel mocks Jeremiah by telling his father “He doesn’t do heavy work […] it’s bad for his hands” (193). Jeremiah feels guilty but knows that his nimble fingers are key to winning the Crookshank Trophy. Jeremiah gets his own opportunity to mock Gabriel when he finds Mariesis repairing his ballet slippers. Deducing that Gabriel has been taking ballet, Jeremiah asks him why he has chosen this particular hobby. Gabriel defiantly retorts that if Jeremiah can play the piano, he can dance ballet. Gabriel has been keeping his classes a secret because he doesn’t want the boys at school to call him “a poof, a sissy, a girlie-boy” (196).

Later, Father Bouchard tells his congregation the story of Chachagathoo, the woman “who made communion with Satan […] whom God punished […] This woman was sent to prison in the south, where she died a lonely death” (197). The Okimasis boys wonder again who Chachagathoo was and why her crime was deemed so serious as to warrant excommunication and damnation.