A week had passed since the occurrence of the events just narrated.
It was a sunny morning; and Mrs. Sumerford was busily employed in weaving, having in the loom a web of linen.
The dwelling of this motherly woman, so much beloved by her neighbors and especially by all the young fry, was a log house of the rudest description; still there was about it that air of neatness and comfort that a thrifty woman will create under almost any circumstances.
The walls were of rough logs, and the openings between them stuffed with moss; but it was driven as hard as the oakum in a vessel's seams, and trimmed at the edges with a sharp knife. The bullet-proof shutters were hung with wooden hinges from the top, and, instead of sliding, swung up to the chamber floor, that was made of peeled poles.
The kitchen presented one feature not precisely in keeping with the rest of the house; namely, a nice board floor, which, after the advent of the whip-saw, Harry had substituted for the original one of flattened poles (or puncheons).
In one corner was a bedstead; for the room served the different purposes of kitchen, sleeping-room, and place of common resort. At the windows were curtains of bulrushes; the floor was white and sanded; and the bed boasted a linen spread, beautifully figured. In a side room was the loom at which Mrs. Sumerford was weaving. All the clothing for four boys and herself was spun and woven from flax and wool, and made up by this goodly, pains-taking woman, who, though extremely sensitive in respect to any danger that menaced her family, did not hesitate, as we have just seen, to handle the rifle in their defence.
Stretched at full length on the hearth, lay a white-faced bear sound asleep, with his right paw on his nose; and between his hind and fore legs was the baby, also sound asleep, his head pillowed on the bear, and his right hand clutching the creature's fur.
Sammy, with his wounded leg resting in a chair, was making a fancy cane, by peeling the bark from a stick of moose-wood in a serpentine curve, and so as to show the white wood in contrast with the dark and mottled bark.
Alex and Enoch were dressing each other's wounds, and permitting the dog to lick them; the tongue of a dog being considered, by the frontier folks, a wonderful specific for healing gun-shot wounds.