"I don't think anything of bringing you and the Injin a little water," she said—laying an emphasis on the words I have put in Italics—"nor should I had we any beer or sap-cider instead. But all our spruce is out; and father said he wouldn't have any more of the cider made, seein' that we want all the sap for sugar. I hope you had a plentiful supply, Mr. Littlepage; and for fear you hadn't, I've brought you and the redskin a pitcher of milk and a bowl of hasty-pudding—he can eat a'ter you've done, you know."
I thanked my kind-hearted friend, and received her gift through a hole that she pointed out to me. The food, in the end, proved very acceptable, as subsequent circumstances caused our regular breakfast to be forgotten for a time. I was desirous of ascertaining from this girl what was said or contemplated among her relatives, on the subject of my future fate; but felt a nearly unconquerable dislike to be prying into what was a species of family secrets, by putting direct questions to her. Fortunately, the communicative and friendly disposition of Lowiny herself soon removed all necessity for any such step; for after executing her main purpose, she lingered with an evident wish to gossip.
"I wish father wouldn't be a squatter any longer," the girl said, with an earnestness that proved she was uttering her real sentiment. "It's awful to be forever fighting ag'in law!"
"It would be far better if he would apply to some landowner and get a farm on lease, or by purchase. Land is so plenty in this country, no man need go without a legal interest in his hundred acres, provided he be only sober and industrious."
"Father never drinks, unless it's on the Fourth of July; and the b'ys be all pretty sober, too, as young men go, nowadays. I believe, Mr. Littlepage, if mother has told father once, she has told him a thousand times, that she doos wish he'd leave off squatting, and take writin's for some piece of land or other. But father says, 'no—he warn't made for writin's, nor writin's for him.' He's desp'ately troubled to know what to do with you, now he's got you."
"Did Mr. Newcome give no opinion on the subject while he was with you?"
"'Squire Newcome! Father never let on to him a syllable about ever having seen you. He knows too much to put himself in 'Squire Newcome's power, sin' his lumber would go all the cheaper for it. What's your opinion, Mr. Littlepage, about our right to the boards, when we've cut, and hauled, and sawed the logs with our own hands. Don' that make some difference?"
"What is your opinion of your right to a gown that another girl has made out of calico she had taken from your drawer, when your back was turned, and carried away, and cut and stitched, and sewed with her own hands?"
"She never would have any right to my calico, let her cut it as much as she might. But lumber is made out of trees."
"And trees have owners just as much as calico. Hauling, and cutting, and sawing can of themselves give no man a right to another man's logs."