“You don’t want any bed, Emily, Bert won’t want that, I know. I’ll make a bed of cedar brush, and spread a bearskin over it; do you make a good bolster and stuff it with straw, and I’ll spread a wolfskin over that. I have a lot of skins that I didn’t sell, thinking we might need them for bedding. Give them a blanket, a birch bark dish to drink out of, and hang up some otter and coon skins, round the tent; pitch it near the spring, and they’ll be in kingdom come.”
“I believe you are going to turn boy yourself. I didn’t think you had any such notions about you.”
“True, I never had any boyhood like other children; but I know the feelings of Bert and Ned, for all that, and I think it is as much my duty to make Bert happy, as it is to pray to God.”
James arrived safely at Mr. Whitman’s. The return voyage was not difficult, as there were three to paddle, and carry the canoe when needful, Ned and Bertie bringing their packs, as they intended to go back on foot, and by their actions, seemed to be going into training for the backwoods.
It was now two days over the time James had fixed as the probable date of his return. The sun was setting, and Emily was looking forward to another lonely night, when the report of two rifles in quick succession, told her they were at hand. Before she could reach the spot, James was climbing the bank, and she almost fell into her husband’s arms.
“I am going to have part of that, Em,” cried Ned, clasping her round the waist.
“And I too,” said Bertie, coming up on the other side, while the overjoyed wife and sister fairly cried with excess of happiness.
“What is that?” said Bertie, catching a glimpse of the white covering of the tent in the gathering twilight.
“That’s where we are going to put you,” said James.
Bertie turned aside the cloth and peered in.