"Somewhat bedraggled," insisted Durgan. "Her skirts of wild flowers and meadow grass are already too long."
But more exciting still were the events of animal life in the purlieus of Deer. The beetles were rolling their mud-balls on the earth; the tadpoles in the mountain ponds were putting forth feet, and the squirrels and birds were arranging their nurseries in different nooks of the greenery above. The polecats prowled boldly to find provender for their wives and little ones. A coon and its cubs were seen. But more interesting than these, because more fully interpreted, were the members of the baby farm over which Bertha reigned. She had calves and kids, litters of pigs and litters of pups, a nest of gray squirrels, nests of birds, and the kit of a wildcat, which a hunter had brought her. This last, a small, whiskered thing, gray as a fox and striped like a tiger, had only just opened its eyes, and must needs be fed from Bertha's hand.
"I am only the grandmother of the others, for they have their own parents," said she; "but I seem to be this one's mother, for it cries continually when I leave it."
For some weeks she carried the kit with her everywhere, even when riding; it curled contentedly in a bag on her lap, and bid fair to be tame.
If Bertha rode out twice a day she paused four times by the mine to exhibit the growing tameness of her pet, or to recount fresh instances of the sagacity or prowess displayed by child or parent in her menagerie.
Durgan went up often to inspect the infant prodigies, and advise (altho he knew nothing) about their upbringing.
Durgan's own work lay exclusively in the "mineral kingdom," and he advanced from ignorance to some degree of skill in auguring from the bowels of the rock. Each day's work brought its keen daily interest, each night's sleep its quota of health and increasing cheerfulness.