"We might play Indian," suggested Carroll hopefully. "Mother lets us take the couch-cover for a tent."
The visitor considered this proposition in Napoleonic silence. "Have your dolls got real hair?" he inquired darkly of Doris.
"Uh-huh; every one of 'em 's got real hair. My new doll 'at I got Christmas 's got lovely long curls. I don't play with her ev'ry day, 'cause mother's 'fraid I'll break her."
"Go an' get her; get all yer dolls."
"Oh—we don't want t' play with dolls," objected Carroll. "Let's build a depot an' have trains a-smashin' int' each other."
"Nope; we'll play Indian," the visitor said firmly. "I'll show you how."
Under his able generalship the sitting-room was presently transformed into the semblance of a rolling prairie, with a settler's wagon in the midst of the landscape in which travelled Richard as husband and father, driving a span of wicker chairs, while Doris, smothering a fine family of long-haired dolls, sat behind.
Elizabeth who paused to glance in at this stage of the proceedings was gratified by a sight of the four happy, earnest little faces, and the apparent innocuousness of the proceedings.
"We're havin' lots of fun, mother; we're playin' wagon!" Doris explained. "These are all my children; an' we're goin' west to live."