“Say, Pop!” She hesitated.
“Wa-al?”
“Kin I have the money for the ile?”
Her father paused, wiped his forehead with a greasy hand, and nodded toward the pocket containing his pipe and tobacco. She filled the pipe and lighted it for him.
“Say, Pop, I hear somebody singin’.”
“Wha—Jumpin’ Gooseflesh! If I ain’t clean forgot they was fifteen of them lumber-jacks comin’ fur supper. Ya-as, thar they be down along shore. Swickey, you skin fur the house and dig into the flour bar’l—quick! We’ll be wantin’ three bake-sheets. I’ll bring some of the meat.”
CHAPTER II—LOST FARM FOLK
Lost Farm tract, with its small clearing, was situated in the northern timber lands, at the foot of Lost Lake. Below lay the gorge through which the river plunged and thundered, its diapason sounding a low monotone over the three cabins on the hillside, its harsher notes muffled by the intervening trees.
When Hoss Avery first came there, bringing his little girl whom he had fondly nicknamed “Swickey,” he climbed the narrow trail along the river, glanced at the camp, swung his pack from his shoulders, filled his pipe, and sitting on a log drew Swickey down beside him and talked to her, asking her her opinion of some things which she understood and a great many things which she did not, to all of which she made her habitual reply of “Yes, Pop.”
That was when Swickey, ten years old and proudly conscious of a new black-and-red checkered gingham dress, had unwittingly decided a momentous question.