"Well, Betsey, what do you suppose made this little mound we are sitting upon?" I asked, merely to gain time to think how best to approach the other topic.
"I don' know," she answered, looking up at me keenly. "Maybe a rock got covered up and growed over, ever so far down. Maybe an Injun's buried there."
I told her I had seen larger mounds that contained Indian remains, but none so small as this.
"It might 'a' ben a baby, though," she returned, digging her brown toes among the leaves and winking her eyelids roguishly. "A papoose, you know; a real little Injun! I wish it had 'a' ben me, and I'd 'a' ben buried here; I'd 'a' liked it first-rate! Only I wouldn't 'a' wanted the girls should come and set over me. If I didn't want so bad to get to read the books father left, I'd never go to school another day." And her brow darkened again with evil passions.
"Did your own father leave you books?"
"Yes, real good ones; only they're old, and tore some. Mother couldn't sell 'em for nothin', so she lets me keep 'em. She sold everything else." Then suddenly changing her tone, she asked, slyly, "You hain't lost anything,—have you?"
"Yes," I answered; "I see you have my sunshade."
She held it up, laughing with boisterous triumph. "You left it hanging in that tree yonder," she said, pointing to a low-branching beech at a little distance. "It was kind o' careless, I think. S'posing it had rained!"
Astonishment kept me silent. How could I have forgotten, what I now so clearly recalled, my hanging the shade upon a tree, the previous afternoon, while I descended a ravine for flowers? I felt humiliated in the presence of the poor little wronged and neglected child.
For many days after this the girl did not come to school, nor did I once see her, though I thought of her daily with increasing interest.