She eagerly put a stool for the girl to sit upon. But Rosebud preferred the table.
“Well, Wana,” said the girl, playfully, “you said you wanted me particularly to-day, so, at great inconvenience to myself, and mother, I have come. If it isn’t important you’ll get into grave trouble. I was going to help Seth hoe the potatoes, but——”
“Poor Seth.” 67 Wanaha had caught something of the other’s infectious mood.
“I don’t think he needs any pity, either,” said Rosebud, impulsively. “Seth’s sometimes too much of a good thing. He said I ought to learn to hoe. And I don’t think hoeing’s very nice for one thing; besides, he always gets angry if I cut out any of the plants. He can just do it himself.”
“Seth’s a good man. He killed my father; but he is good, I think.”
“Yes.” For the moment Rosebud had become grave. “I wonder what would have——” She broke off and looked searchingly into her friend’s face. “Wana,” she went on abruptly, “why did you send for me to-day? I can’t stay. I really can’t, I must go back and help Seth, or he’ll be so angry.”
Rosebud quite ignored her own contradictions, but Wanaha didn’t.
“No, and it is not good to make Seth angry. He—what-you-call—he very good by you. See, I say come to me. You come, and I have—ah—ah,” she broke off in a bewildered search for a word. “No—that not it. So, I know. Birthday pre—sent.”
Wanaha gave a triumphant glance into Rosebud’s laughing face and went to a cupboard, also made of packing cases, and brought forth a pair of moose-hide moccasins, perfectly beaded and trimmed with black fox fur. She had made them with her own hands for her little friend, a labor of love into which she 68 had put the most exquisite work of which she was capable.
Rosebud’s delight was unfeigned. The shoes were perfect. The leather was like the finest kid. It was a present worthy of the giver. She held out her hands for them, but the Indian laughed and shook her head.