,
and his wife and children had to stay behind, in the woods, with
wolves and bears and Indians close by.

"The very day after he started, his wife was sitting by the fire with
her baby in her lap, when the door opened, and a great, enormous
Indian walked in and straight up to her.

"I guess she was frightened; don't you?

"'He gone?' asked the Indian in broken English.

"'Yes,' she said.

"Then the Indian held out his hands and said,--'Pappoose. Give.'"

"Oh, my!" cried Romaine. "I'd have screamed right out."

"Well, the lady didn't," continued Molly. "What was the use? There
wasn't any one to scream to, you know. Beside, she thought perhaps the
Indian was trying her to see if she trusted him. So she let him take
the child, and he marched away with it, not saying another word.

"All that night, and all next day, she watched and waited, but he did
not come back. She began to think all sorts of dreadful things,--that
perhaps he had killed the child. But just at sunset he came with the
baby in his arms, and the little fellow was dressed like a chief, in a
suit of doe-skins which the squaws had made, with cunning little
moccasins on his feet and a feather stuck in his hair. The Indian put
him in his mother's lap, and said,--

"'Now red man know white squaw friend, for she not afraid give child.'

"And after that, all the time her husband was gone, the Indians
brought venison and game, and were real kind to the lady. Wasn't it
nice?"

The children drew long breaths of relief.

"I don't think I could have been so brave," declared Kitty.

"Now I'll tell you a story which I made up myself," said Romaine, who
was of a sentimental turn. "It's called the Lady and the Barberry
Bush.

"Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a lady who loved a
barberry bush, because its berries were so pretty, and tasted so nice
and sour. She used to water it, and come at evening to lay her
snow-white hand upon its leaves."

"Didn't they prick?" inquired Molly, who was as practical as Romaine
was sentimental.

"No, of course they didn't prick, because the barberry bush was
enchanted, you know. Nobody else cared for barberry bushes except the
lady. All the rest liked roses and honeysuckles best, and the poor
barberry was very glad when it saw the lady coming. At last, one
night, when she was watering it, it spoke, and it said,--'The hour of
deliverance has arrived. Lady, behold in me a Prince and your lover!'
and it changed