Billy said nothing, but, with his back turned toward Aunt Florence, he made a face at Gerald.
"Well, Beely," protested the Frenchman, "that's a pretty crooked face you make there. Let me look on that face. She's round like the pumpkin, and your eye she's like two little blue bead. Well, I can't see nothing wrong with it now. A minute ago I'm 'fraid. You must not make such face like that on your brother, because, Beely, I'm afraid she freeze like that."
"But where have you been all this time?" questioned Betty, while Gerald motioned Aunt Florence to watch the grimaces and motions Antoine made as he talked.
"Oh, I'm work back here on the cedar swamp, getting out some pole to load big vesseal when he come. Where's your papa? I want to see if he's hear anything of the George Sturgis. I'm think he's come last week, and I'm look for it ever since. He was going to come last week to Cecil Bay to get my pole to take to Chicago. I'm 'fraid we's going to get bad weather, and I want to get out my load of pole quick as I could."
"You'll have to wait, Antoine," declared Gerald, "because papa went to the station with some messages, and he's going to wait for the mail, and the train's late."
"Don't you want to see our baby?" asked Betty. "Oh, he is the dearest little fellow, just three months old. Mamma says he looks exactly as Billy did when he was a baby."
"Beely ain't baby no more," commented the Frenchman. "I s'pose he ain't like the new baby pretty good?"
"Oh, yes," Betty assured Antoine, "Billy loves the baby."
"And I'm seven, going on eight," the small boy declared. "It seems a hundred years since you were here last," he continued; "have you been working in the cedar swamp all that time?"
"Well," was the reply, "I'm think if you be there when the black fly and the moskeet eat you up, you would say it was one hundred year sure. You say your papa she go to the post-office, hey?"