I only know the man had brought more milk and fish and fowl for us. We
stayed another day in the old house, that went like the last, and the
night man came again to see Uncle Eb. The next morning my companion was
able to walk more freely, but Fred and I had to stop and wait for him
very often going down the big hill. I was mighty glad when we were
leaving the musty old house for good and had the dog hitched with
all our traps in the wagon. It was a bright morning and the sunlight
glimmered on the dew in the broad valley. The men were just coming from
breakfast when we turned in at David Brower's. A barefooted little girl
a bit older than I, with red cheeks and blue eyes and long curly hair,
that shone like gold in the sunlight, came running out to meet us and
led me up to the doorstep, highly amused at the sight of Fred and the
wagon. I regarded her with curiosity and suspicion at first, while Uncle
Eb was talking with the men. I shall never forget that moment when David
Brower came and lifted me by the shoulders, high above his head, and
shook me as if to test my mettle. He led me into the house then where
his wife was working.

'What do you think of this small bit of a boy?' he asked.

She had already knelt on the floor and put her arms about my neck and
kissed me.

'Am' no home,' said he. 'Come all the way from Vermont with an ol' man.
They're worn out both uv 'em. Guess we'd better take 'em in awhile.'

'O yes, mother--please, mother,' put in the little girl who was holding
my hand. 'He can sleep with me, mother. Please let him stay.'

She knelt beside me and put her arms around my little shoulders and drew
me to her breast and spoke to me very tenderly.

'Please let him stay,' the girl pleaded again.

'David,' said the woman, 'I couldn't turn the little thing away. Won't
ye hand me those cookies.'

And so our life began in Paradise Valley. Ten minutes later I was
playing my first game of 'I spy' with little Hope Brower, among the
fragrant stooks of wheat in the field back of the garden.

Chapter 6

The lone pine stood in Brower's pasture, just clear of the woods. When
the sun rose, one could see its taper shadow stretching away to the
foot of Woody Ledge, and at sunset it lay like a fallen mast athwart
the cow-paths, its long top arm a flying pennant on the side of Bowman's
Hill. In summer this bar of shadow moved like a clock-hand on the green
dial of the pasture, and the help could tell the time by