“She’s all right, my boy,” said Ruel kindly. “She’s ben a laughin’, and is all high fer walkin’ home, ef we’d let her.”
The boy’s face twitched with emotion, and in spite of himself he could not prevent two or three tears from rolling over his cheeks.
“Here’s some cordial,” he managed to say, “that aunt Puss said would—would be good for her. And uncle Will himself was at home, and will meet us at the cross-road with his team.”
Before leaving the tent, Ruel, at Tom’s request, tried to make Moll accept a small sum for her services. But she would not take a cent.
“These Injuns are queer people,” said Ruel, leading the way with Pet in his arms, toward the road. “Sometimes they do act like angels from heaven, an’ sometimes—they don’t! You never know whar to hev ’em.”
“Where does this family come from?” asked Tom, trudging beside Ruel and holding twigs aside from Pet’s face.
“From up North somewhars. They won’t tell who they are, and I shall be glad, fer one, when they leave.”
“I shall be thankful to them as long as I live, for what that woman did for Pet,” said Kittie warmly.
“Wall, that’s so; she was a master hand, an’ no mistake. Give me an Injun fer any kind of a hurt you kin git in the woods.”
Right glad were they all to find uncle Will and his noble grays, waiting for them at the road. Just what the kind old man had suffered, sitting there helplessly for the last five minutes, no one will ever know—except perhaps his gentle wife Eunice—“aunt Puss”—with whom he talked the whole matter over, after the children had gone to bed that night.