Mother.—"Twist them in and out like basket work."
Schillie.—"I wish you would cease with your twistings in and out, and help me to guess what these things are."
Mother.—"My dear, I have guessed long ago, and think I am quite right too in my guess."
Schillie.—"And why are you so unkind as not to tell me? you know how anxious I am."
Mother.—"I am quite surprised that you did not see at once, they are only gigantic 'fighting cocks,' as we used to call plantain in our youth."
Schillie.—"You are the greatest——, well! I won't say what with your fighting cocks. Come, go on about your blessed old hut."
Mother.—"But it is not an old hut, inasmuch as it is not built yet, or even begun, nor does it seem likely to be begun, as we have quarrelled three times over merely of what it is to be made."
Schillie.—"Then now I won't trouble you any more, I will think of nothing but this hut, and will do whatever you bid me. But you must promise me, that if I help you, that no one else is to share it with us. I won't have any fidgety girls, or sick boys to come and wear one to death with their nonsense."
Mother.—"Pooh, pooh, you know who will be the first to invite them in, however, I only mean it for us two."
So to work we set, and in a short time had so changed our relative positions, that I was scolded for not working hard enough, and having entered thoroughly into the business, she took the command, and I willingly obeyed her sage orders. She had a capital head for contrivance, and consequently treated some of my suggestions with scorn and indifference. In fact, my notion of "twisting in and out" so often mentioned, was immediately pronounced as a trap for musquitos, scorpions, and such like. We were to have our hut made partly of boughs, partly of sods, partly of mud. This was to keep it cool. Over all we placed the large smooth plantain leaves and it really did not look amiss, but something like the little round mushroom huts of the charcoal burners. It took us four days to complete it. We told nobody until it was finished; then, of course everybody wanted to sleep in it. The size of the hut spoke the best answer. At each end we had nailed a strip of sail-cloth, which served for the bed on which to lie, and, wrapped up in a sheet, it was very cool and comfortable. Though Schillie was very uneasy for the first hour, and, upon my remonstrating, muttered, half asleep, "I wish I knew what these trees were."