I am going to tell several things you
won't believe, and this is one of them: He got off his horse, tied it
to the fence, and climbed over after me. He went on asking questions
and of course I had to tell him. Most of what he wanted to know, his
people should have taught him before he was ten years old, but father
says they do things differently in England.

"There doesn't seem to be many trees in the jungle."

"Well, there's one, and it's about the most important on our land," I
told him. "Father wouldn't cut it down for a farm. You see that
little dark bag nearly as big as your fist, swinging out there on that
limb? Well, every spring one of these birds, yellow as orange peel,
with velvet black wings, weaves a nest like that, and over on that big
branch, high up, one just as bright red as the other is yellow, and the
same black wings, builds a cradle for his babies. Father says a red
bird and a yellow one keeping house in the same tree is the biggest
thing that ever happened in our family. They come every year and that
is their tree. I believe father would shoot any one who drove them
away."

"Your father is a gunner also?" he asked, and I thought he was laughing
to himself.

"He's enough of a gunner to bring mother in a wagon from Pennsylvania
all the way here, and he kept wolves, bears, Indians, and Gypsies from
her, and shot things for food. Yes sir, my father can shoot if he
wants to, better than any of our family except Laddie."

"And does Laddie shoot well?"

"Laddie does everything well," I answered proudly. "He won't try to do
anything at all, until he practises so he can do it well."

"Score one for Laddie," he said in a queer voice.

"Are you in a hurry about the lions and tigers?"

"Not at all," he answered.

"Well, here I always stop and let Governor Oglesby go swimming," I said.

Mr. Mahlon Pryor sat on the bank of our Little Creek, took off his hat
and shook back his hair as if the wind felt good on his forehead. I
fished Dick Oglesby from the ammunition in my apron pocket, and held
him toward the cross old man, and he wasn't cross at all. It's funny
how you come to get such wrong ideas about people.

"My big married sister who lives in Westchester sent him to me last
Christmas," I explained. "I have another doll, great big, with a
Scotch plaid dress made from pieces of mine, but I only play with her
on Sunday when I dare not do much else. I like Dick the best because
he fi