This made Uncle George smile. "Look out!" he said. "You will be in a quarrel yet, if you are not careful. What is it, Rea?"
While Rea was collecting her thoughts to reply, Jusy took the words out of her mouth.
"She thinks I am cruel, because I said I didn't believe you would build a house for Indians up in your cañon."
"It was not that!" cried Rea. "You are real mean, Jusy!"
And so I think, myself, he was. He had done just the thing which is so often done in this world,—one of the unfairest and most provoking of things; he had told the truth in such a way as to give a wrong impression, which is not so very far different, in my opinion, from telling a lie.
"A home for Indians up in the cañon!" exclaimed Uncle George, drawing Rea to him, and seating her on his knee. "Did my little tender-hearted Rea want me to do that? It would take a very big house, girlie, for all the poor Indians around here;" and Uncle George looked lovingly at Rea, and kissed her hair, as she nestled her head into his neck. "Just like her mother," he thought. "She would have turned every house into an asylum if she could."
"Oh, not for all the Indians, Uncle George," said Rea, encouraged by his kind smile,—"I am not such a fool as Jusy thinks,—only for those two old ones that are going to be turned out of their home they've always lived in. You know the ones I mean."
"Ah, yes,—old Ysidro and his wife. Well, Rea, I had already thought of that myself. So you were not so much ahead of me."