“You like this here place, Swickey?” her father had asked.
“Yes, Pop,” and she snuggled closer in his arm.
“Think you and me can run the shebang—feed them lumber-jacks goin’ in and comin’ out, fall and spring?”
“Yes, Pop.”
“’Course you’ll do the cookin’, bein’ my leetle woman, won’t you?” And the big woodsman chuckled.
“Yes, Pop,” she replied seriously.
“And you won’t git lonesome when the snow comes and you can’t play outside and ketch butterflies and sech things in the grass? They ain’t no wimmen-folks up here and no leetle gals to play with. Jest me and you and the trees and the river. Hear it singin’ now, Swickey! Bet you don’t know what it’s sayin’.”
“Yes, Pop.” But Swickey eyed her father a mite timidly as she twisted her dress round her fist. She hoped he would not ask her what the river was “really-truly, cross-your-heart-or-die, sayin’,” but she had imagination.
“What be it sayin’, Swickey?”
She rose to the occasion pluckily, albeit hesitating at first. “Why it’s—it’s—it’s sayin’, ‘father, father, father,’—jest slow like thet. Then it gets to goin’ faster and faster and says, ‘Hello, Swickey! Hello, Pop! thet you?’—jest like thet. Then it goes a-growlin’ ’long and says, ‘Better stay fur a lo-o-ng time ’cause it’s nice and big and—and—’ and I’m hungry fur supper,” she added. “Ain’t thet what it says, Pop?”