"I don't know what your book meaning is. I didn't get mine from books. I got it all the way along—began to get it when I wasn't much bigger'n that little gell," said the Witch, pointing at Fanny with her pipe. "I didn't know what it meant when I first heard it, but I know now. Hoo-oo-oo-oo!"
"I wish you'd tell us about it," said Benny. "Tell us about beginning to learn it when you wa'n't much bigger'n Pettikins."
"That's when the colonel said we must move west'ard," said the witch, laying her pipe down on the log, leaning her elbows on her knees, and resting her bony jaws in the palms of her hands. "Injuns, before they're exterminated, stick to their homes like other folks."
THEY ENCOUNTER THE WITCH.
"You ain't an Injun, be you!" gasped Benny, with a look and tone which expressed volumes of consternation and disappointment at her utter failure to come up to his ideal Indian. Why, she wasn't the least bit like the pictures! She wasn't like the magnificent figures he had seen in front of the cigar stores in New Haven. Where were all her feathers and things—her red and yellow tunic, her gorgeous moccasons, her earrings and noserings and bracelets and armlets and beads? Why, she was ju-u-u-ust as ragged and dirty!
All this and more Benny's tone expressed when he said: "Why, you ain't an Injun, be you?"
"Well, I was. I ain't nothing at all now. I ain't even a squaw, and they said they was going to make a Christian on me. I was a Chetonquin."
"Oh, yes," said Benny, looking at her now with the interest attaching to one who had worn the feathers, and beads, and moccasons, and rings. "Well, what did you do when the colonel told you to go West?"