ted land all day had not
the woman nature asserted itself. Isabel had had enough of fairies and
goblins. They must give up this wandering life and settle down, she
declared. They would build a house in the fence corner and carpet it
with moss and have clam shells from the creek for dishes. Scotty had
fallen quite meekly into the unaccustomed role of follower and was
willing that they should go housekeeping, provided he was allowed to
play the man's part. He would be Big Wind, the Indian who lived down
by Lake Simcoe, and he would go off shooting bears and Lowlanders all
day, and she would stay at home and be his squaw and make baskets. But
Miss Isabel would be nothing of the kind. She did not like "scraws";
they were very dirty, and came to the back door and sold their baskets.
But Scotty might be a great hunter if he wanted, and she would be the
lady who lived in the house, and she would cook the dinner and go to
the door and call "hoo-hoo" when it was ready, the way Kirsty did when
Long Lauchie's boys worked in her fields.

"I see Kirsty now!" she called, seating herself upon a log which formed
one side of their mansion. "I see her 'way over yonder!" Scotty
seated himself beside her, flushed and heated with the unwonted
exertions of house-building.

"Oh, don't you love Kirsty," she cried, giving him an ecstatic shake.
"I do; an' I love you, too, Scotty, you're a dear!" Scotty looked
slightly uncomfortable, but not wholly displeased.

"Don't you love to run away off in the bush like this, and have nobody
to bother you?" she inquired next.

"Yes." Scotty could cordially assent to that. "When I get a man," he
said, in a sudden burst of confidence, "I'm goin' to live in a wigwam
like Big Wind an' shoot bears!"

"Oh, my!" she cried in delight. "I wish I could live with you, only I
don't want to be an ugly scraw, I want to be like Kirsty when I grow
big, an' live up here in the Oa, an' pile hay; but I'll have to be like
Auntie Eleanor an' wear a black silk dress, oh, dear!"

"Wouldn't you be liking a silk dress?" asked Scotty in surprise.

"No!" she cried disdainfully. "You've always got to take care of it.
I want a red petticoat like Kirsty wears, and I want to go in my bare
feet all the time, and live in the bush."

"Don't you go in your bare feet at home?" inquired Scotty in amazement.

"No," she admitted mournfully. "Auntie Eleanor says 'tisn't nice for
little girls, an' I have to play the piano