“No house at all, for a time,” said Friend Morris. “At first, each family chose its own tree, and under it they lived, glad of any shelter that would protect them from sun and rain.”
“Like the squirrels and rabbits,” murmured Lydia.
“Then, as the weather grew colder, they dug caves in the bank of the river, where with a roof of boughs and comfortable beds of leaves, they lived until they were able to build real houses of logs or stone.”
“That was nice,” said little Tom. “I’d like to live in a cave. I’d keep the bears out with my sword.”
“Gwen liked it, too, though I don’t know that she saw any bears,” answered Friend Morris. “But oh, how glad her mother was when their log house was finished. It had a ladder on the outside that led to the upper room, and Gwen learned to run up and down this ladder as quickly as a squirrel runs up a tree. Gwen’s father had built the house on the river-bank far away from his friends, for some day he meant to clear the land and have a large farm.
“There was little time for visiting in those busy days, and Gwen might have been lonely if it had not been for Seaborn. He was a fat roly-poly, a year old now, creeping and crawling into all kinds of mischief, and Gwen spent her spare moments trotting around after him. He was a good-natured baby, but now he was cutting his teeth, and this made him cross and fractious. And he cried. Oh! how he cried. His mother rubbed his gums with her thimble to help his teeth through, and he cried harder than ever. Gwen danced up and down and shook his home-made rattle, a gourd filled with dried peas, but he only pushed her away. And just then came the time for the big Friends’ Meeting to be held across the river in the town of Philadelphia.
“‘Father will go, but we must stay at home, Gwen,’ said her mother. ‘We meant to take thee, and Seaborn, too, but thee couldn’t ask me to take this crying baby anywhere.’
“‘How long would thee be gone, Mother? Two days and a night?’ asked Gwen. ‘Wouldn’t thee trust me to stay at home and take care of Seaborn?’
“And Gwen coaxed and wheedled, and wheedled and coaxed, until the next morning, feeling very important and grown-up, she saw her father and mother start across the river in their little boat, bound for the great Quarterly Meeting.
“That very afternoon Seaborn’s nap was so quiet and peaceful that Gwen wasn’t the least surprised, on peeping into his mouth when he woke, to see a big new tooth shining in that pink cavern. What if it was raining and they couldn’t go out of doors? It was easy enough to amuse Seaborn now.