eneral sitting room:

"Did you have a nice sleep, Nannie?"

"Goodness, Auntie!" laughed Nan. "I got over taking a nap in the daytime
a good while ago, I guess. But you come and see what I have done. I
haven't been idle."

Aunt Kate went and peeped into the east chamber. "Good mercy, child! It
doesn't look like the same room, with all the pretty didos," she said.
"And that's your pretty mamma in the picture on the mantel? My! Your
papa looks peaked, doesn't he? Maybe that sea voyage they are taking
will do 'em both good."

Nan had to admit that beside her uncle and cousins her father did look
"peaked." Robust health and brawn seemed to be the two essentials in the
opinion of the people of Pine Camp. Nan was plump and rosy herself and
so escaped criticism.

Her uncle and aunt, and the two big boys as well, were as kind to her
as they knew how to be. Nan could not escape some of the depression
of homesickness during the first day or two of her visit to the woods
settlement; but the family did everything possible to help her occupy
her mind.

The long evenings were rather amusing, although the family knew little
about any game save checkers, "fox and geese," and "hickory, dickory,
dock." Nan played draughts with her uncle and fox and geese and the
other kindergarten game with her big cousins. To see Tom, with his
eyes screwed up tight and the pencil poised in his blunt, frost-cracked
fingers over the slate, while he recited in a base sing-song:

"Hick'ry, dick'ry, dock
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
An' down he come
Hick'ry, dick'ry, dock,"

was side-splitting. Nan laughed till she cried. Poor, simple Tom did
know just what amused his little cousin so.

Rafe was by no means so slow, or so simple. Nan caught him cheating
more than once at fox and geese. Rafe was a little sly, and he was
continually making fun of his slow brother, and baiting him. Uncle Henry
warned him:

"Now, Rafe, you're too big for your Marm or me to shingle your pants;
but Tom's likely to lick you some day for your cutting up and I sha'n't
blame him. Just because he's slow to wrath, don't you get it in your
head that he's afraid, or that he can't settle your hash in five
minutes."

Nan was greatly disturbed to hear so many references to fistic
encounters and fighting of all sorts. These men of the woods seemed to
be possessed of wild and unruly passions. What she heard the boys say
caused her