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CHAPTER Vv.
Her. boat is on the river,
‘With the boy by her side;
With her bow and her quiver .-
Sho stands in her pride.
Tie next afternoon old Mr. Danforth was absent from home. A
municipal meeting, or something of that kind, was to be attended,
and he was always prompt in the performance of public duties, The
good housewife had not been well for some days. -Malaeska, always
@ gentle nurse, attended her with unusual assiduity. There was
something evidently at work in the Indian woman’s heart. Her lips
were pale, her eyes full of pathetic trouble. After a time, when
weariness made the old lady sleepy, Malacska stole to. the bedside,
and kneeling down, kissed the withered hand that fell over the bed, °
with strange humility. This action was so light that the good lady
did not heed it, but afterward it came to her like a dream, and as
such she remembered this leave-taking of the poor mother. |
William —for the lad was named after his father — was in a
.moody state that afternoon. -Ife had no playfellows, for the indispo-
sition of his grandmother had shut all strangers from. the house, so
he went into the garden, and began to draw the outlines of a rude
fortification from the white pebbles that paved the principal walk.
He was interrupted in the work by a pair of orioles, that came dash-
ing through the leaves of an old apple-tree in a far end of-the gar-
den, in full chase and pursuit, making dhe very air vibrat. with their
‘rapid motion.
_d\fter chasing each other up and down, to and fro in t+ clear
sunshine, they were attracted by something in the distance, anc dart-
ed off like a couple of gold& arrows, sending back wild gusbes of
music in the start. .
~ The boy had been-watching them with his. great eyes full of exvi-
ous delight. Their riotous freedom charmed him; he felt chaia~d
and caged even in that spacious garden, full of golden fruit an‘l
bright flowers as it was. ‘he native fire kindled in his frame.
** Oh, if I were only a bird, that could fly home when I pleasz? |
and away to the woods again — the bright, beautiful woods that *
can sce across the river, but never must play in. How the bird
must love it though !”? . .
The boy stopped speaking, for, like any other child kept to him
self he was talking over his thoughts aloud. But a shadow fel
across the white pebbles on which he sat, and this it was which dis
turbed him. - ; .
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