they could be seen, it was noticed that the child
looked back from time to time. She was saying to her mother she wished
they could take that little pale-faced boy with them.

"So Moppet is gone," said Charley. "I wonder whether we shall ever see
her again." Willie heaved a sigh, and said, "I wish she was my little
sister."

Thus met two innocent little beings, unconscious representatives of
races widely separated in moral and intellectual culture, but children
of the same Heavenly Father, and equally subject to the attractions of
great Mother Nature. Blessed childhood, that yields spontaneously to
those attractions, ignoring all distinctions of pride or prejudice!
Verily, we should lose all companionship with angels, were it not for
the ladder of childhood, on which they descend to meet us.

It was a pleasant ripple in the dull stream of their monotonous life,
that little adventure of the stray pappoose. At almost every gathering
of the household, for several days after, something was recalled of
her uncouth, yet interesting looks, and of her wild, yet winning ways.
Charley persisted in his opinion that "Moppet would be pretty, if she
wore her hair like folks."

"Her father and mother called her Wik-a-nee," said Willie; "and I like
that name better than I do Moppet." He took great pains to teach it
to his baby sister; and he succeeded so well, that, whenever the
red-and-yellow basket was shown to her, she said, "Mik-a-nee,"--the W
being beyond her infant capabilities.

Something of tenderness mixed with Mrs. Wharton's recollections of the
grotesque little stranger. "I never saw anything so like the light of an
astral lamp as those beautiful large eyes of hers," said she. "I began
to love the odd little thing; and if she had stayed much longer, I
should have been very loath to part with her."

The remembrance of the incident gradually faded; but whenever a far-off
neighbor or passing emigrant stopped at the cabin, Willie brought
forward his basket, and repeated the story of Wik-a-nee,--seldom
forgetting to imitate her strange cry of joy when she saw the scarlet
peas. His mother was now obliged to be more watchful than ever to
prevent him from wandering out of sight and hearing. He had imbibed an
indefinite idea that there was a great realm of adventure out there
beyond. If he could only get a little nearer to the horizon, he thought
he might perhaps find another pappoose, or catch a prairie-dog and tame
it. He h