“Go near snakes! Yes, indeed I do, and talk to them, too.”
“Talk to snakes!” echoed Frank and Kate in chorus, and even Mrs. Hallock looked up interested.
Grandma Dobson was standing in the doorway. “There! dear me! I near forgot the egg I was beating up for the lad,” she said, stepping back and taking up the plate upon which she had the white of an egg.
“Let me do that,” urged Kate; “I know how, I do it often for mamma. All that she has to say, is ‘Whiff, Kate!’ and I’m on the spot; and I’m there now; so, please?” extending her hand for the plate and knife, and adding, “I’m in an awful hurry to hear what you say to snakes.”
“It’s a bit of a story, and a true one, too,” said Mrs. Dobson, sitting down in a chair that Frank had the politeness to offer to her.
“You little folks will wonder that I know about Indians,” she began, “but there were perhaps a dozen of the Wepawaugs living here when I was a little girl, eight years old, or thereabouts.
“One Indian woman I remember very well—she was a granddaughter of Ansantawae, a Sachem, and very, very proud of her ancestors. Her uncle had been the great medicine man of his tribe: from him, she learned to make syrups of roots, barks, and herbs, that she gathered from far and near. She was a clever soul, everybody trusted her, and when she was going off once, in the early summer, up to the Southington mountains to get the things she wanted for her syrups, I ran away to go with her.”
“Grandma Dobson!” with bated breath from Kate and Frank; while Kate from that instant forgot all about the egg she was beating.
“Yes, children, I did, but I was sorry enough before I got back, I can tell you. I knew when she was going, for I had been down to see her and to carry to her some things from my mother, the night before. I had never seen a mountain, and the very name of one sounded so grand, that I thought I’d give anything to see the real thing; so the next morning, when it was about time for her to start, I started, too, and went along the road I knew she was going to take—for I had asked her that. Well, when I got out of the town where there were no more houses, it seemed so lonely that I was frightened, and I went behind a big rock and waited for her to come along.
“I hadn’t long to wait. She came very fast, standing up as straight as a pine tree when the wind is still, and over her shoulder a stout stick with two bundles on it—one hanging behind, and one before. I knew if she met me there, she would send me back; so I ran on behind her. She never looked back once, but walked so fast that at last I lost sight of her; but I kept on and on, over hills and down by streams, until I was tired as I could be. The sun was hot, and I was hungry, and I came to a place where a road turned off, and I didn’t know which road she had taken.”