e, speak um quick!--Jaw-awn! Great long name!" drawled she,
stretching it out as if it were made of India rubber, and scowling with
an air of disgust.

"What does she mean by calling 'John' _long_?" thought Horace.

The woman wore a calico dress, short enough to reveal her brown,
stockingless feet and gay moccasons.

Her hair was crow-black, and strayed over her shoulders and into her
eyes. Horace concluded she must have lost her back-comb.

While he was looking at her with curious eyes, her daughter came to the
door, feeling a little cross at the stranger, whoever it might be; but
when she saw only an innocent little boy, she smiled pleasantly, showing
a row of white teeth. Horace thought her rather handsome, for she was
very straight and slender, and her eyes shone like glass beads. Her hair
he considered a great deal blacker than black, and it was braided and
tied with gay red ribbons. She was dressed in a bright, large-figured
calico, and from her ears were suspended the longest, yellowest,
queerest, ear-rings. Horace thought they were shaped like boat-paddles,
and would be pretty for Prudy to use when she rowed her little red boat
in the bathing-tub. If they only "scooped" a little more they would
answer for tea-spoons. "Plenty big as I should want for tea-spoons," he
decided, after another gaze at them.

The young girl was used to being admired by her own people, and was not
at all displeased with Horace for staring at her.

"Me think you nice white child," said she: "you get me sticks, me make
you basket, pretty basket for put apples in."

"What kind of sticks do you mean?" said Horace, forgetting that they
pretended not to understand English. But it appeared that they knew
very well what he meant this time, and the Indian boy offered to go with
him to point out the place where the wood was to be found. Grasshopper,
who had only hidden behind the trees, now came out and joined the boys.

"Wampum," as he chose to be called, led them back to Mr. Parlin's
grounds, to the lower end of the garden, where stood some tall silver
poplars, on which the Indians had looked with longing eyes.

"Me shin them trees," said Wampum; "me make you basket."

"Would you let him, Grasshopper?"

"Yes, indeed; your grandfather won't care."

"Perhaps he might; you don't know," said Horace, who, after he had asked
advice, was far from feeling obliged to take it. He ran in great haste
to the field where his grandfather was hoei