The mild-eyed mother reached out with a handful of apron and wiped away the lavish helping of stew which had embedded itself in Jane Constance’s thick brown curls. The smears on her chubby face were hopeless. They could remain for the wash tub afterwards.
“I guess it’s what you say, Kid,” she acquiesced. “The good God gave me two hands and the will to work. But I guess he forgot about the means of guessin’ right when things got awry. The twins are some men—now,” she went on fondly, gazing with pride upon Clarence and Algernon, with his fiery red-head, the possession of which was always a mystery to her contented mind. “We’ll make out. Eh, Mary?” she cried, turning to the dark-eyed girl who was her eldest child. “Things don’t figger to worry you if you don’t worry them, I say. When do you pull out?”
“When the breaking’s through, and the deer are ready for the winter trail. The season’s good with us if we could only get the pelts. We’ve more deer to trade than we’ve ever had before.”
Percy looked up, his grey eyes alight.
“Why don’t we quit trade and chase up that gold Usak’s always yarning about,” he said eagerly. “It’s yours, Kid. Leastways it was your paw’s. We wouldn’t need to worry with furs then.”
The boy pushed his plate away. For all he was not yet twelve, gold held a surpassing fascination for his alert, trading mind.
“I’m all for the gold, Mum,” he went on soberly. “An’ I’m real glad old Ben’s gone. Ther’s no one around but ourselves now, when we find it. Breeds don’t figger in it. When we get it we’ll divide it all up. Kid’ll have most, ’cos it’s hers, anyway. The one who finds it’ll have next. An’ Jane don’t need any. You see, she’s a fool kid, an’ would maybe try to eat it. Guess I’m goin’ to find it.” The Kid laughed, and exchanged meaning glances with the mother across the table.
“Can you beat him?” she cried, and all the children laughed with her. “He’s arranged for the finder to have next most to me. Say Perse, Mum had best read you out of the Testament. Ther’s a man in it they used to call Judas. I guess you ought to know about him. Ther’s another feller, but I don’t know about him. He was in another book. He was the same sort of feller only not so bad. I think they called him Shylock. He’s in one of old Ben Needham’s books, so you can’t read about him.”
“Don’t want to anyway,” retorted the unabashed Perse. “Soon as I’m as big as Clarence an’ Red-head I’m goin’ out after that gold, an’ I’ll buy you all a swell ranch an’ fixings, an’ give you all you want, an’ Mum won’t have to work no more. I reckon Clarence an’ Red-head are kites. Wish I was big as them.”
“Kite’s nothin’!” Clarence was without humour, and took his small brother seriously. “You’ll do the chores same as us when you’re big as us. Ther’ ain’t no gold ’cept in Usak’s head. Mum said the Euralians got it years back. You’d do a heap better gettin’ after pelts same as us—only we can’t get ’em. Gold—nothin’!” Perse thrust his empty plate towards Mary Justicia who took it for replenishment, and he watched while his mother wrung the small nose of Jane Constance which had got mixed up with her stew.