“Wasn’t there any trail?” asked Frank.
“I was only a little girl, and I never thought to look for footprints; but just as I was standing there, something spoke to me out of the woods on my left. I jumped, I can tell you, to hear my name called—‘Dorothy! Dorothy Ford!’—out of the dark woods.
“‘Where are you going?’ came next; and then I knew the voice. Anawa was sitting over there, eating her dinner. I told her I was going with her. At first she said ‘No, I must go back; yes, the first horse she met on the road, she would send me home to my mother.’ She made me sit down on the rock by her, and eat some of my own mother’s bread and cake.
“After awhile we got up and went on, but all day long we did not meet one horse going toward Wepawaug. Anawa was a good deal vexed when she had to walk slow, because I was tired. She muttered away to herself in the Indian language, and now and then scowled at me, until I was so frightened that I wanted to cry. It began to grow dark at last, and I longed to see Pumpkin Delight Lane more than I had wanted to see the mountains at any time in my life.
“I did not see any houses anywhere about, and when I asked Anawa where she was going to sleep, she scowled worse than ever, and I said no more until we reached an Indian cabin—a little more than a wigwam, but not much like any house that I had ever stayed in. There was no one in it. The Indian broke up dry twigs and branches, and made a fire, and cooked some salt fish that she had in one of her bundles. We ate the fish and some more of my mother’s bread, which almost choked me, I remember; and then Anawa went out of the hut, and left me alone. I don’t think she was gone long, but it seemed a great while to me—so long that if it hadn’t been for the bundles that she left, I should have been afraid she didn’t mean to come back at all. When she did come in, she had her arms so full of hemlock boughs, that I couldn’t tell whether she was pleased or angry. She made a pile of them on the floor, and bade me ‘to bed’ with an air of authority that I did not dare to resist. I lay down and went to sleep. Before the sun was up, she called me, gave me a crust to eat, shouldered her staff, with its bundle made fast to either end, and strode on. I followed her.
“Pretty soon we met a boy driving a cow to pasture, although there was plenty of grass all along the highway; and then when we had climbed another long hill, there was a red house in sight. I couldn’t help saying I wanted a mug of milk. Anawa gave a grunt for answer; but when she came to the gateway, she went in.
“Mr. Primrose lived in the red house, and when I found out that the Indian wished me to stay there until there was a chance to send me home, I cried, and made such a fuss about it, that she took hold of my hand, twitched me out of the house, and down the next hill as fast as she could go; but as it was not until I had a nice warm breakfast, I did not care much about it. After that Anawa begun to talk to me about everything we saw along the way, and when I got very tired she sat down and waited until I had rested. After three days we came to the Southington mountains.
“‘You’ll see snakes pretty soon,’ she said. Then I began to be terribly afraid, and to cling to her gown.
“‘Snakes won’t hurt you, if you’re good,’ she said. ‘Keep still now. Hear me!’ She went on a few steps and stopped by a big rock and began to say ‘Good, nice snakes! beautiful creatures! pretty little rattlesnakes! Anawa won’t hurt you, and you mustn’t hurt her.’
“While she said this, I had hidden behind her, and was so frightened that I could do nothing but gaze at the snakes on the rock. Anawa’s voice seemed to charm them. They did not stir or sound a rattle, and we went on. We were all day on the mountains, and saw maybe a hundred snakes. She would kneel right down by the side of a snake and dig roots from the ground, crooning away to it like a mother to a baby. Since then I haven’t been very near many snakes, but I am not afraid of one. I tell a snake just as Anawa did, that I won’t hurt it if it doesn’t hurt me, and somehow it seems to understand.”