“Not now, lad. Work first, talk afterwards. That’s my motto.”
“But work is over now—the fire lighted and the kettle on,” objected Tolly.
“Nay, lad, when you come to be an old hunter you’ll look on supper as about the most serious work o’ the day. When that’s over, an’ the pipe a-goin’, an’ maybe a little stick-whittlin’ for variety, a man may let his tongue wag to some extent.”
Our small hero was fain to content himself with this reply, and for the next half-hour or more the trio gave their undivided attention to steaks from the loin of the fat buck and slices from the breast of the wild duck which had fallen to Tolly’s gun. When the pipe-and-stick-whittling period arrived, however, the trapper disposed his bulky length in front of the fire, while his young admirers lay down beside him.
The stick-whittling, it may be remarked, devolved upon the boys, while the smoking was confined to the man.
“I can’t see why it is,” observed Tolly, when the first whiffs curled from Mahoghany Drake’s lips, “that you men are so strong in discouragin’ us boys from smokin’. You keep it all selfishly to yourselves, though Buckie an’ I would give anythin’ to be allowed to try a whiff now an’ then. Paul Bevan’s just like you—won’t hear o’ me touchin’ a pipe, though he smokes himself like a wigwam wi’ a greenwood fire!”
Drake pondered a little before replying.
“It would never do, you know,” he said, at length, “for you boys to do ’zackly as we men does.”
“Why not?” demanded Tolly, developing an early bud of independent thought.
“Why, ’cause it wouldn’t” replied Drake. Then, feeling that his answer was not a very convincing argument he added, “You see, boys ain’t men, no more than men are boys, an’ what’s good for the one ain’t good for the tother.”