Kenneth was beginning to express his sense of his host's kindness when he was interrupted by a hasty summons to the bedside of a sick woman at the other end of the village.
"Come, Nell, and take a look at Chillicothe," the major said, leading the way to the grass plot in front of the house, where they seated themselves upon a log.
There were many such lying about the streets, many trees and stumps of those which had been felled, still standing; in fact nearly the whole town was still a wilderness; yet though not a year old, it already contained, beside private dwellings, two taverns and several stores and shops of mechanics, but among them all there were but four shingled houses, and on one the shingles were fastened with pegs. The streets were very wide and straight, crossing at right angles; not all cleared yet, but marked out by blazing the trees of the thick wood in whose midst the town was located.
There were many Indians in the vicinity. They had a town not far away, on the north fork of Paint Creek, and here in Chillicothe their wigwams were interspersed among the dwellings of the whites as Nellie noticed with some uneasiness.
But her brother reassured her. "There is no danger," he said, "they are perfectly friendly."
"Ah, but they are a treacherous race," she sighed with a dubious shake of the head.
"Quite a change from Philadelphia, Nell," Clare remarked, joining them with her knitting in her hand.
"Yes, but it is many weeks since I left there."
"Is it nice in Philadelphia, Aunt Nellie?" asked Bess, the eldest of the children, hanging affectionately about the young girl. "Do tell us what it's like, and about the pretty things in the shop windows."
"Another time, Bess," interposed the major. "Run away to your play now, and let older people talk. Nell, you saw Washington more than once?"