men!' said father.

"Then he reached his hand and the chief took it, so I came down the
ladder and stood beside father, as the Indians began to file in the
front door and out the back. As they passed, every man of them made
the peace sign and piled in a heap, venison, fish, and game, while each
squaw played with the baby and gave me a gift of beads, a metal
trinket, or a blanket she had woven. After that they came often, and
brought gifts, and if prowling Gypsies were pilfering, I could look to
see a big Indian loom up and seat himself at my fireside until any
danger was past. I really got so I liked and depended on them, and
father left me in their care when he went to mill, and I was safe as
with him. You have heard the story over and over, but to-day is the
time to impress on you that an exhibition like THIS is the veriest
child's play compared with what I have seen your father do repeatedly!"

"But it was you, the chief said was brave!"

Mother laughed.

"I had to be, baby," she said. "Mother had no choice. There's only
one way to deal with an Indian. I had lived among them all my life,
and I knew what must be done."

"I think both of you were brave," I said, "you, the bravest!"

"Quite the contrary," laughed mother. "I shall have to confess that
what I did happened so quickly I'd no time to think. I only realized
the coal red iron was menacing the papoose when it drew back and
whimpered. Father had all night to face what was coming to him, and it
was not one to one, but one to forty, with as many more squaws, as good
fighters as the braves, to back them. It was a terror but I never have
been sorry we went through it together. I have rested so securely in
your father ever since."

"And he is as safe in you," I insisted.

"As you will," said mother. "This world must have her women quite as
much as her men. It is shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, business."

The clamour in the meadow arose above our voices and brought us back to
the foxes.

"There goes another!" I said, the tears beginning to roll again.

"It is heathenish business," said mother. "I don't blame you! If
people were not too shiftless to care for their stuff, the foxes
wouldn't take their chickens and geese. They never get ours!"

"Hoods aren't shiftless!" I sobbed.

"There are always exceptions," said mother, "and they are the exception
in this case."

The door flew open and Leon ran in. He was white with excitemen