Mr. Trumbull laughed pleasantly.
So the two walked homeward, Charlie in a more serious frame of mind than usual.
"I tell you, Kit," she began at length, "out West is the place to have a cave, and fires, and all that Hal had a book about it. Sometimes children are kidnapped by Indians, and live in their tents, and learn how to make bead-bags and moccasins"—
"I don't want to go;" and Kit gave his slender shoulders a shrug. "They scalp you too."
"But they wouldn't me. I should marry one of the chiefs." Then, after a rather reflective pause, "I'm glad we didn't burn down Mr. Trumbull's woods: only I guess he wasn't in earnest when he said he would put me in jail."
But for all that she begged Kit not to relate their adventure to Granny, and perplexed her youthful brain for a more feasible method of running away.
The house seemed very odd without Florence. The children's small errors passed unrebuked; and they revelled in dirt to their utmost content. For what with working out a day now and then, getting meals, patching old clothes, and sundry odd jobs, Granny had her poor old hands quite full. But she never complained.