flat millstone imbedded in the grass at the back door, while he
displayed and sold his wares and had his dinner. He then went out to the
dooryard with little Johnny Helme, sat down on the millstone, lighted
his pipe, opened his jack-knife, and discoursed thus:--

"Johnny, I'm going to tell you how to make an Injun broom. Fust,
you must find a big birch-tree. There ain't so many big ones now
of any kind as there useter be when we made canoes and plates and
cradles, and water spouts, and troughs, and furnitoor out of the
bark. But you must get a yallow birch-tree as straight as H and
edzactly five inch acrost. Now, how kin ye tell how fur it is
acrost a tree afore ye cut it off? I kin tell by the light of my
eye, but that's Injun larnin'. Lemme tell you by book-larnin'.
Measure it round, and make the string in three parts, and one
part'll be what it is acrost. If it's nine inch round, it'll be
three inch acrost, and so on. Now don't you forgit that. Wal! you
must get a straight birch-tree five inch acrost where you cut it
off, just like this one. Then make the stick six foot long. Then
one foot and two inch from the big end cut a ring round the bark;
wal! say two inch wide just like this. Then you take off all the
bark below that ring. Then you begin a-slivering with a sharp
jack-knife, leetle teeny flat slivers way up to the bark ring. When
it's all slivered up thin and flat there'll be a leetle hard core
left inside at the top, and you must cut it out careful. Then you
take off the bark above the ring and begin slivering down. Leave a
stick just big enough for a handle. Then tie this last lot of
slivers down tight over the others with a hard-twisted tow string,
and trim 'em off even. Then whittle off and scrape off a good
smooth handle with a hole in the top to put a loop of cowhide in,
to hang it up by orderly.

"Yes, Johnny, I've got just enough Injun in me to make a good
broom; not enough to be ashamed of and not enough to be proud of.
But you mustn't forgit this; a moccasin's the best cover a man
ever had on his feet in the woods; the easiest to get stuff for,
the easiest to make, the easiest to wear. And a birch-bark canoe's
the best boat a man can have on the river. It's the easiest to get
stuff for, easiest to carry, the fastest to paddle. And a
sno