Annie and her mother began to wonder how such an abundance of good things as poured in upon them could ever be disposed of.
Breakfast had scarcely been cleared away on the morning of the appointed day, when Tom and Katie came trotting to the door in their light wagon. They had scarcely alighted when Uncle John arrived, driving up with his wife and children. "Only just ahead of us, Tom!" he cried, as he jumped out, and ran up the steps to kiss Annie. "Bless you, my girl!"
"I am so glad you are all come," said Annie, with a smiling, blushing face. "Mother is so busy, and wishing so for Aunt Abby and Katie!"
"Aye, they're two good ones for setting things to rights!" cried Uncle John; "but I say, Annie, we met a party of red ladies and gentlemen coming here."
"What do you mean, uncle?"
"Why, half a dozen Indians, with their squaws and papooses are on the road, and I told them to stop here, and I would trade with them—so get something for them to eat, will you?"
The travellers soon made their appearance; a strange-looking set of red-skinned, black-eyed Indians, wrapped in dirty, many-colored blankets. The men were hard-featured, and degraded in their bearing, not at all resembling the description we have received of their warlike ancestors, before the fatal "fire water," as they call rum, had become known to them; but some of the women had a soft, melancholy expression of countenance, which was very pleasing. They carried their babies, which were bandaged from head to foot, so that they could not move a limb, in a kind of pouch behind; the little dark faces peeped over the mothers' shoulders, and looked contented and happy.
The party stopped at the gate, and all the family went out to inspect the articles of their own manufacture, which the Indians humbly offered for sale. These consisted of baskets ornamented with porcupine quills, moccasins of deer-skin, and boxes of birch bark. Mrs. Lee's and Aunt Abby's heart bled for the way-worn looking mothers and their patient babes; they relieved their feelings, however, by making them eat as much as they would. Uncle John and Tom were glad to buy some of the pretty toys for wedding presents, and after an hour's stay the party resumed their march.
"Those Indians always make me feel sad," remarked Uncle John when they were gone; "a poor disinherited race they are,—homeless in the broad land which once belonged to their fathers!"
"It is a melancholy thought at first, certainly," replied Mr. Lee; "but if you reflect awhile you will find consolation. There are many towns which were founded by persons still living, whose inhabitants already outnumber all the hunter tribes which once possessed the forest; and surely the industry of civilization is to be preferred to the wild rule of the savage!"