eers in
Revolutionary days. It will be most enjoyed by the older
children.

"Pile in, Hannah. Get right down 'long o' the clock, so's to kinder
shore it up. I'll fix in them pillers t'other side on't, and you can
set back ag'inst the bed. Good-bye, folks! Gee up! Bright. Gee! I tell
ye, Buck."

[Footnote 30: Adapted from "Huckleberries," Houghton, Mifflin Co.]

"Good-bye!" nodded Hannah, from the depths of the old calash which
granny had given her for a riding-hood, and her rosy face sparkled
under the green shadow like a blossom under a burdock leaf.

This was their wedding journey. Thirty long miles to be travelled, at
the slow pace of an oxcart, where to-day a railroad spins by, and a
log hut in the dim distance.

But Hannah did not cry about it. There was a momentary choking,
perhaps, in her throat, as she caught a last view of granny's mob cap
and her father's rough face, with the red head of her small
stepbrother between them, grouped in the doorway. Her mother had died
long ago, and there was another in her place now, and a swarm of
children. Hannah was going to her own home, to a much easier life,
and going with John. Why should she cry?

Besides, Hannah was the merriest little woman in the country. She had
a laugh always lying ready in a convenient dimple.

She never knew what "blues" meant, except to dye stocking yarn. She
was sunny as a dandelion and gay as a bobolink. Her sweet good nature
never failed through the long day's journey, and when night came she
made a pot of tea at the campfire, roasted a row of apples, and
broiled a partridge John shot by the wayside, with as much enjoyment
as if this was the merriest picnic excursion, and not a solitary camp
in the forest, long miles away from any human dwelling, and by no
means sure of safety from some lingering savage, some beast of harmful
nature, or at least a visit from a shambling black bear, for bears
were plentiful enough in that region.

But none of these things worried Hannah. She ate her supper with
hearty appetite, said her prayers with John, and curled down on the
featherbed in the cart, while John heaped on more wood, and,
shouldering his musket, went to lengthen the ropes that tethered his
oxen, and then mounted guard over the camp. Hannah watched his fine,
grave face, as the flickering light illuminated it, for a few minutes,
and then slept tranquilly till dawn. And by sunset next day the little
party drew up at the door