“Exactly my own feelings, Cousin Lorena,” admitted Miss Slocum, “and I regret the departure of any member of our circle—all except the Indians. I really do not think that any amount of living among them would teach me to feel lonely at their absence. And that dreadful Akkomi!”
“Yes, isn’t he a trial? Not that he ever does any harm; but he just keeps a body in mortal dread, for fear he might take a notion to.”
“Yet Mr. Overton seems to think him entirely friendly.”
“Humph! yes. But if ’Tana should pet a rattlesnake, 222 Mr. Overton would trust it. That’s just how constant he is to his friends.”
“Well, now,” said Miss Lavina, with mild surprise in her tone, “I really have seen nothing in his manner that would indicate any extreme liking for the girl, though she is his ward. Now, that bright young gentleman, Mr. Lyster—”
“Tut, tut, Lavina! Max Lyster is all eyes and hands for her just now. He will fan her and laugh with her; but it will be Dan who digs for her and takes the weight of her care on his shoulders, even if he never says a word about it. That is just Dan Overton’s way.”
“And a very fine way it is, Lorena,” said Miss Slocum, while her eyes wandered out to where he stood talking to Lyster. “I’ve met many men of fine manners in my time, but I never was more impressed at first sight by any person than by him when he conducted me personally to you on my arrival. The man had never heard my name before, yet he received me as if this camp had been arranged on purpose for my visit, and that he himself had been expecting me. If that did not contain the very essence of fine manners, I never saw any, Lorena Jane.”
“I—I s’pose it does, Lavina,” agreed Mrs. Huzzard; “though I never heard any one go on much about his manners before. And as for me—well,” and she looked a bit embarrassed, “I ain’t the best judge myself. I’ve had such a terrible hard tussle to make a living since my man died, that I hain’t had time to study fine manners. I’ll have time enough before long, I suppose, for Dan Overton surely has offered me liberal living wages. But, Lavina, even if I did want to learn now, I wouldn’t know where to commence.”
“Well, Lorena, since you mention it, there is lots of 223 room for improvement in your general manner. You’ve been with careless people, I suppose, and bad habits are gathered that way. Now I never was much of a genius—couldn’t trim a bonnet like you to save my life; but I did have a most particular mother; and she held that good manners was a recommendation in any land. So, even if her children had no fortune left them, they were taught to show they had careful bringing up. One of my ideas in coming out here was that I might teach deportment in some Indian school, but not much of that notion is left me. Could I ever teach Flap-Jacks to quit scratching her head in the presence of ladies and gentlemen? No.”
“I don’t think,” said Mrs. Huzzard, in a meditative way, “that I mind the scratching so much as I do the dratted habit she has of carrying the dish-cloth under her arm when she don’t happen to be using it. That just wears on my nerves, it does. But I tell you what it is, Lavina—if you are kind of disappointed on account of not getting Indian scholars that suit just yet, I’m more than half willing you should teach me the deportment, if you’d be satisfied with one big white scholar instead of a lot of little red ones.”