Hiram heard, and leaped from the brink at once, though a kingfisher was at that very moment eyeing him with head on one side from the half-concealing foliage of the basswood tree opposite. 'Yes, marm,' he answered submissively, showing himself as fast as he was able in the pasture above the blackberry lot. 'Wal! What is it?'
'Hiram,' his mother said, as soon as he was within convenient speaking distance, 'you come right along in here, sonny. Where was you, say? Here's father swearin he'll thrash you for goin' loafin'. He wants you jest to come in at once and help weed the peppermint. I guess you've bin down in the blackberry lot, fishin', or suthin'.'
'I ain't bin fishin',' Hiram answered, with a certain dogged, placid resignation. 'I've bin lookin' around, and that's so, mother. On'y lookin' around at the chipmunks an' bobolinks, 'cause I was dreadful tired.'
'Tired of what?' asked his mother, not uncompassionately.
'Planin',' Hiram answered, with a nod. 'Planks. Father give me forty planks to plane, an' I've done'em.'
'Wal, mind he don't thrash you, Hiram,' the sallow-faced woman said, warningly, with as much tenderness in her voice as lay within the compass of her nature. 'He's orful mad with you now, 'cause you didn't answer immejately when he hollered.'
'Then why don't he holler loud enough?' asked Hiram, in an injured tone—he was an ill-clad boy of about twelve—'I can't never hear him down lot yonder.'
'What's that you got in your pocket, sir?' Mr. Winthrop puts in, coming up unexpectedly to the pair on the long, straight, blinking high-road. 'What's that, naow, eh, sonny?'
Hiram pulls the evidence of guilt slowly out of his rough tunic. 'Injuns,' he answers, shortly, in the true western laconic fashion.
Mr. Winthrop examines the object carelessly. It is a bit of blackish stone, rudely chipped into shape, and ground at one end to an artificial edge with some nicety of execution.