the mill.

"I do hope Esther Eldridge and her father will come to-day," she said.
"Do you think they will, mother dear?"

"Yes, child; they will probably arrive before sunset. Your father
expected them yesterday. It will be a fine thing for you to have a
little girl for a companion. But she is a village child, and may not
be happy in the Wilderness," responded Mrs. Carew.

"Why, of course she will like being here! Just think, she has never
seen wheat ground into flour! And she can see that in our mill; and
she has always walked on real roads, and here she will not even see a
road; and I know many pleasant paths where we can walk, and I can
tell her the names of different trees and flowers. I'm sure she will
think the Wilderness a fine place," said Faith, nodding her head so
that her yellow curls seemed to dance about her face.

"I hope they make the journey from Brandon safely. Your father has
been told that the Indians have been troublesome to the settlers near
Lake Dunmore; and besides that, there are many bears coming out into
the clearings these fine autumn days. But Mr. Eldridge is a good shot,
and I am seeking trouble in naming Indians or bears. Finish your
breakfast, Faithie, and run to the garden and bring me in the ripest
of the pumpkins; for I must make some cakes for our company."

The Carews lived in a log house on a slope of cleared ground running
down to the mill-stream. There were no roads, only rough trails, and
they had no near neighbors. Faith's father had a large grant of land,
a "New Hampshire Grant," it was called, which ran toward the eastern
shore of Lake Champlain. Faith had no playmates, and when Mr.
Eldridge, of the town of Brandon, had sent word that he was coming to
see Mr. Carew on business and would bring his small daughter with
him, Faith had been overjoyed and had made many plans of what she
would do to entertain her visitor.

Faith finished her breakfast, and helped her mother clear the table
and wash the dishes, and then went up the slope to where a number of
fine pumpkins and squashes, growing among the corn, were ripening in
the early September sunshine. She looked about carefully, and selected
a yellow pumpkin. "This is about as large as my head," she said aloud,
"and I guess it is about the same color," and she ran back to the
house carrying the pumpkin, which Mrs. Carew set to bake in the brick
oven beside the fireplace.

"When it is baked may I fix the shell for a work-bas