Now it must be remembered that we have said that years had passed away. Skipping Rabbit was no longer a spoiled, little laughing child, but a tall, graceful, modest girl, just bursting into womanhood. She was still as fond as ever of the jumping-jack, but she slily worked its galvanic limbs for the benefit of little children, not for her own—O dear no! Eaglenose had also grown during these years into a stalwart man, and his chin and lower jaws having developed considerably, his nose was relatively much reduced in appearance. About the same time Brighteyes and Softswan, naturally desiring to become more interesting to their husbands, also joined this class, and they were speedily followed by Moonlight and Bounding Bull. Rushing River also looked in, now and then, in a patronising sort of way, but Whitewing resolutely refused to be troubled with anything when in camp save his mother and his mother-tongue.
It will not therefore surprise the reader to be told that Eaglenose and the skipping one, being thus engaged in a common pursuit, were naturally, we may even say unavoidably, thrown a good deal together; and as their philological acquirements extended, they were wont at times to air their English on each other. The lone woods formed a convenient scene for their intercourse.
“Kom vis me,” said Eaglenose to Skipping Rabbit one day after school.
“Var you goes?” asked the girl shyly—yet we might almost say twinklingly.
“Don’ know. Nowhars. Everywhars. Anywhars.”
“Kim ’long, den.”
“Skipping one,” said Eaglenose—of course in his own tongue, though he continued the sentence in English—“de lunguish of de pale-fass am diffikilt.”
“Yes—’most too diffikilt for larn.”
“Bot Softswan larn him easy.”
“Bot Softswan have one pale-fass hubsind,” replied the girl, breaking into one of her old merry laughs at the trouble they both experienced in communicating through such a “lunguish.”