playing; and the birds with their
nest-building; and the crows with their idling about the limbs of the
old dead trees. All this is very nice, I know, but hardly worth the risk
you must be at in getting there to enjoy it."

"But, mother," urged Bushie, "Burl would be so glad to see me sitting up
there, on top of the fence, just where he and old Cornwallis would be
coming out at the end of the row. I know just 'zacly what he'd say, the
minute he sees me: 'I yi, you dogs!'"

"Yes, and somebody else might be glad to find a little white boy sitting
up there on top of the fence," rejoined the mother, with a warning look.
"Somebody who would steal up from behind, as soft as a cat upon a bird,
and before knowing it, there! you would find a big red hand clapped over
your mouth to keep you from screaming for help. Then, hugged tight in a
pair of red arms, cruel and strong, off you'd go through the woods and
over the hills and across the Ohio to old Chillicothe, there to be made
a wild Indian of, for the rest of your days, if not roasted alive at
once. Only this morning, Captain Kenton, on his way from Limestone to
Lexington, dropped in at breakfast-time, and told us that he had seen
fresh Indian signs in the woods not more than five miles from the fort.
And, Bushie, my boy, have you forgotten that only this spring Burl shot
a panther in the woods between here and the field? And that only last
winter he knocked a bear in the head with his ax, at the big sink-hole
spring in the middle of the field? And that only last fall he trapped
and killed that terrible one-eyed wolf in the black hollow just beyond
the field?" And seeing her little son opening his mouth and fetching a
breath for a fresh effort, the mother, with more decision, added: "No,
Bushie, no! Play about the fort as much as you please, but go to the
field to-day you must not, and you shall not. There!" And with this she
clapped his little coon-skin cap upon his head, and ramming it down to
his ears, bid him go and hunt up the other children and play at home,
like mother's good boy.

Now, Bushie loved his mother dearly, even tenderly, for a juvenile
pioneer, especially at meal-times and at nights; the fort, too, in bad
weather, he liked well enough. But on Burl, between meals, and on the
woods and fields, in fine weather, he fairly doted. The weather on the
present occasion was as fine as the heart of a healthy, growing,
adventurous boy could wish for recreation under t