“You mean it’s taken over as part of the reservation?”
“My little gal goes ter the Home then.”
“That’s your⸺”
“She’s my granddaughter, she’s a orphant, she’s my son’s little gal.”
“Well,” I laughed, “I think you’ll live to be a hundred.”
He made no comment upon that, only trudged along ahead of me through the woods, following a sort of path of least resistance, verging here and there the easiest way; one could hardly call it a trail.
“So that’s the way they do with the old settlers, hey?” I said. “Let them stay in their old homes as long as they live⸺”
“We can’t rent or sell though,” he said.
“Well, I shouldn’t think you’d want to,” I observed. “It’s just the idea of home, of the old homes of your people, that the state is thinking about, I suppose. But wouldn’t your granddaughter have the place when—if she were old enough, I mean?”
“She ain’t like ter be old enough,” said he. “Fifteen, that’s all she is.”