This last question was put to my small cousin, who, in the horror of her belief that my father had gone mad, had agitated the window-curtain and revealed herself!
My poor dear father! I can imagine the scene well, and would not have detailed it so minutely here if—but enough. I must not forecast.
The afternoon on which this letter was despatched Big Otter returned to Sunny Creek cottage with a haunch of fat venison on his lusty shoulders.
He found us all grouped round the rustic table in front of the door, enjoying a cup of fragrant tea, and admiring the view. Eve was sitting on a low stool at the feet of Mrs Liston, engaged in ornamenting a bright blue fire-bag with bead and quill work of the most gorgeous colouring and elegant design. The design, of course, was her own. Mrs Liston was knitting small squares of open cotton-work, of a stitch so large that wooden needles about the size of a goose-quill were necessary. It was the only work that the poor old lady’s weak eyesight and trembling hands could accomplish, and the simple stitch required little exercise of mind or muscle. When Mrs Liston completed a square she rolled it away. When sixteen squares were finished, she sewed them together and formed a strip about eight feet long and six inches broad. When sixteen such strips were completed, she sewed them all together and thus produced a bed-quilt. Quilts of this sort she presented periodically, with much ceremony and demonstration of regard, to her most intimate friends. In that region the old lady had not many intimate friends, but then it luckily took much time to produce a quilt.
The quilt then in hand—at that time near its completion—was for Eve.
“Thank you so much for your venison,” said Mrs Liston, as the hunter, with an air of native dignity, laid the haunch at her feet. “Take it to the kitchen, dear,” she added to Mrs Temple, who was pouring out the tea.
“It has just come in time,” said Mrs Temple, with a pleasant nod to Big Otter; “we had quite run out of fresh meat, and your friend Muxbee is such a lazy boy that he never touches a gun. In fact I don’t know how to get him out of the house even for an hour.”
As this was said in English, Big Otter did not understand it, but when he saw the speaker stoop to pick up the venison, he stepped quickly forward and anticipated her. “Thank you, carry it this way,” said Aunt Temple (as I had begun to style her), leading the Indian to the pantry in rear of the cottage.
“Well, Big Otter,” said I, when they returned, “now do you find the country round here in regard to game?”
“There is much game,” he answered.