But Guy seemed not to hear, and right away after dinner he disappeared.
"He's dodging the dishwashing again," suggested the Woodpecker.
"No, he isn't," said the Second Chief. "I believe he's going to bring his folks to see him in his triumph."
"That's so. Let's chip right in and make it an everlasting old blowout—kind of a new date in history. You'll hear me lie like sixty to help him out."
"Good enough. I'm with you. You go and get your folks. I'll go after old Caleb, and we'll fix it up to call him 'Hawkeye' and give him his grand coup feather all at once."
"'Feard my folks and Caleb wouldn't mix," replied Sam, "but I believe for a splurge like this Guy'd ruther have my folks. You see, Da has the mortgage on their place."
[436] So it was agreed Sam was to go for his mother, while Yan was to prepare the Eagle feather and skin the Woodchuck.
It was not "as big as a bear," but it was a very large Woodchuck, and Yan was as much elated over the victory as any of them. He still had an hour or more before four o'clock, and eager to make Guy's triumph as Indian as possible, he cut off all the Woodchuck's claws, then strung them on a string, with a peeled and pithed Elder twig an inch long between each two. Some of the claws were very, very small, but the intention was there to make a Grizzly-claw necklace.
Guy made for home as fast as he could go. His father hailed him as he neared the garden and evidently had plans of servitude, but Guy darted into the dining-room-living-room-bedroom-kitchen-room, which constituted nine-tenths of the house.