“That’s all nonsense, Kitty Briscoe. A person can’t see more than a person can. There are neither houses nor ships, such as you talk about, and you are sillier than any fairy story I ever read.”
Yet long afterward he was to remember that first hour in the new home, and the rapt face of the girl gazing skyward.
Then they all went in to supper, which had been provided by the thoughtful friends at the Fort across the river; but which, the Sun Maid assured the busy women there, must be the only meal supplied that was ready prepared.
“For, if I’m to be housekeeper I mean to learn all about that, even before I do the books, which the Doctor will teach me and that I am so eager to study. But I’ll be his home-maker first, and I’ll give them jonny-cake for breakfast. Mercy said it was cheap and wholesome, and we have to be very careful of the Doctor’s little money.”
How wholesome, rather how most unwholesome, that first jonny-cake proved, Kitty never after liked to recall; but she was not the only young house mistress who has made mistakes; and, fortunately, the master of the house was not critical. And how far the study-craving girl would have carried out her own plan of housewifery before reading is not known; for, having done the best she could, and having, at least, swept and dusted the rooms carefully she took little Four by the hand and set out to ask instruction of her Fort friends against the dinner-getting.
Now the fascinating dread and interest of this little fellow was an Indian; and, trudging along through the dirt, he scanned the horizon critically, then suddenly gripped her hand hard and tight.
“Kitty! I do believe—there are—some coming! Run! Run!”
“Why should I run? The Indians are my best and oldest friends. It might even be——”
She paused so long, shading her eyes from the sunlight and gazing fixedly across the landscape with a gathering surprise and delight upon her face, that the child clutched her frock, demanding: