"Do y' wan' to go?" asked Ans again, opening his arms. She sprang toward him, raising her eager little hands as high as she could, and when he lifted her she twined her arms around his neck.
"Poor little critter! she ain't got no pap ner mam now," the old woman explained to the ring of children, who still stared silently at the stranger almost without moving.
"Ain't he her pa-a-p?" drawled one of the older girls, sticking a finger at Anson.
"He is now," laughed Ans, and that settled the question over which he had been pondering for days. It meant that as long as she wanted to stay she should be his Flaxen and he would be her "pap." "And you can be Uncle Bert, hey?" he said to Bert.
"Good enough," said Bert.
[CHAPTER V.]
FLAXEN BECOMES INDISPENSABLE TO THE TWO OLD BACHELORS.
They never found any living relative, and only late in the spring was the fate of the poor father revealed. He and his cattle were found side by side in a deep swale, where they had foundered in the night and tempest.
As for little Flaxen, she soon recovered her cheerfulness, with the buoyancy natural to childhood, and learned to prattle in broken English very fast. She developed a sturdy self-reliance that was surprising in one so young, and long before spring came was indispensable to the two "old baches."