“Husband,” said Mrs. Jones, “the trouble will come soon enough; and I was hoping Mr. Allen would never find out who took his cattle. If he shoots one Indian, it will bring hundreds of them 55 upon the settlements, and we shall have dreadful times!”
“Fush!” returned the husband; “Allen is good for a dozen Indians, and there are plenty more of us to help him. But don’t you be scared; the red-skins know us too well to risk a fight. They’ll only prowl around and steal a little beef, and shoot at a fellar unaware, from under kiver–that’s all they’ll venter on–you can depend on that!” Then he took down his rifle, cleaned and loaded it, and saying, “I guess I’ll go along a piece; perhaps Allen’ll come across the varmints afore he’s aware,” with a quick step he was soon hidden from view.
The news of the accident that had happened to Tom, and that Mr. Jones had been shot at by the Indians, spread rapidly, with many exaggerations; for the inhabitants of a new country, being mutually dependent, feel a special personal interest in whatever befalls each other. Besides, there are not such distinctions as obtain in the old, settled portions of the country, and they become well acquainted with one another’s affairs. Moreover, the doctor, as he went his rounds, gave a flaming account of the injury that his patient at the cabin had sustained, and painted in glowing colors the magical effects of his professional services. If he did not assert in so many words that Tom’s head was actually blown from his body, and that 56 he replaced it so that it was on better than before, he gave the impression that something as extraordinary had been achieved by his medical and surgical skill. And through the day quite a number called to satisfy their curiosity, or show their sympathy. It proved, therefore, quite an occasion for the Jones children, and they feasted their eyes and ears to their hearts’ content. As for the mother, weary of the unwonted interruptions, and wishing to commune with her own heart, she willingly bade the last visitor “good by,” and, calling Robert, she directed him to bring in some wood and make a fire, that she might fry some cakes for tea. Robert proceeded with alacrity to do this, the other children helping him in the task, the prospect of the cakes being the quickening principle. Robert filled the grate with dry wood, and, proceeding to light it, the room was soon dense with smoke. This, however, was no new experience, as the blackened walls of the cabin testified. But soon the smoke had measurably cleared away, and the tea-kettle sent up volumes of steam, and Mrs. Jones, taking some meal from her frugal stock, poured boiling water upon it, and added some salt. Then putting on the griddle some deer fat, she put the dough in large iron spoonfuls into the sputtering grease.
“Your father will relish these,” said she to the children, who stood in solid ranks around the 57 stove, watching her with interest. And having taken off the last cake, she set the heaping plate in the open oven to keep warm till her husband came.
“I guess pa’s coming now,” said Sarah, who, anxious to get to eating, had looked out to see if he was in sight. “No; it isn’t he, either; I don’t know who it is. How nicely dressed he is!”
At the latter exclamation the family urchins rushed in a body through the door, upsetting Sarah in their eagerness to see the wonder.
A gentlemanly, middled-aged man in black, with gold spectacles and pleasant countenance, approached.
Accustomed to the plainly-attired specimens of humanity that do the hard work of the frontier, the children, overawed by his appearance, shrank behind cabin and pigsty, in spite of his kindly invitations to stay, where they peeped at him in open-mouthed astonishment.
“Mrs. Jones, I presume,” said he, bowing, as, abashed, she answered his polite rap on the door-frame.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, wondering how he knew her name.