The party stooped one by one to the oval door, and exclaimed over the fascinations of the shadowy interior, which reminded Yellow Star vividly of the conical wigwams of her people. The little house was quite bare and empty, and redolent of the scent of fern and pine.
“We ought to have a couch of fir-balsam,” suggested Miss Morrison, who had spent a summer in the Adirondacks.
Cynthia proposed an armful of thick moss, while ease-loving Doris declared that for her part she preferred to bring out a hammock.
“What makes you so quiet, Jibby?” demanded Sin, as they stepped forth into the open, under the skyey roof.
“I feel in my heart what I have no words to say,” murmured the Indian girl.
“Our neighbors would be quite as well pleased, perhaps, if we were all as quiet as Stella,” suggested Ethan, quickly.
“What neighbors do you mean? Uncle Si doesn’t care how much noise we make,” remarked literal Doris.
“No; but my oven-bird does,” and the boy pointed out a shy, golden-crowned bird that was apparently reconnoitering the gay party with some anxiety, from behind a sheltering clump of laurel.
“Is its nest near by?” “Oh, show us, do!” came from one and another.
The nest was a curious one, oven-shaped, as the bird’s name would suggest, with an opening at the side through which the first of four speckled eggs could be dimly seen. But Ethan would not allow them to come too near, or linger too long. The little mother was already uttering cries of distress, and feigning lameness to draw them away from her treasure.