himself. Its concealment bettered as the foliage grew around it again,
and he gloried in its wild seclusion and mystery, and wandered through
the woods with his bow and arrows, aiming harmless, deadly blows at
snickering Red-squirrels--though doubtless he would have been as sorry
as they had he really hit one.
Yan soon found out that he was not the only resident of the shanty.
One day as he sat inside wondering why he had not made a fireplace, so
that he could sit at an indoor fire, he saw a silent little creature
flit along between two logs in the back wall. He remained still. A
beautiful little Woodmouse, for such it was, soon came out in plain
view and sat up to look at Yan and wash its face. Yan reached out for
his bow and arrow, but the Mouse was gone in a flash. He fitted a
blunt arrow to the string, then waited, and when the Mouse returned he
shot the arrow. It missed the Mouse, struck the log and bounded back
into Yan's face, giving him a stinging blow on the cheek. And as Yan
rolled around grunting and rubbing his cheek, he thought, "This is
what I tried to do to the Woodmouse." Thenceforth, Yan made no attempt
to harm the Mouse; indeed, he was willing to share his meals with it.
In time they became well acquainted, and Yan found that not one, but a
whole family, were sharing with him his shanty in the woods.
Biddy's remark about the Indian tobacco bore fruit. Yan was not a
smoker, but now he felt he must learn. He gathered a lot of this
tobacco, put it to dry, and set about making a pipe--a real Indian
peace pipe. He had no red sandstone to make it of, but a soft red
brick did very well. He first roughed out the general shape with his
knife, and was trying to bore the bowl out with the same tool, when
he remembered that in one of the school-readers was an account of the
Indian method of drilling into stone with a bow-drill and wet sand.
One of his schoolmates, the son of a woodworker, had seen his father
use a bow-drill. This knowledge gave him new importance in Yan's eyes.
Under his guidance a bow-drill was made, and used much and on many
things till it was understood, and now it did real Indian service by
drilling the bowl and stem holes of the pipe.
He made a stem of an Elderberry shoot, punching out the pith at home
with a long knitting-needle. Some white pigeon wing feathers trimmed
small, and each tipped with a bit of pitch, were strung on a stout
thread and fastened to the stem for a finishing to
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