d," in his own
beautifully childlike and appropriate fashion. And she was quite right.
Peter had hardly shaken hands and tucked the four boys snugly into his
big bob-sleigh, before the names slipped off his tongue with the ease of
one who had used them for a lifetime.

Tom and Jerry had fully prepared their Southern friends for everything.
They had talked for hours with great pride of their father's devotion
to his Indian congregation, of their mother's love for the mission, of
the Indians' responsive affection for them, of the wonderful progress
the Mohawks had made, of their beautiful church, with its city-like
appointments, its stained windows, its full-toned organ and choir of all
Indian voices, until the Jamaica boys began to feel they were not to see
any "wild" Indians at all. Peter, however, reassured them somewhat, for,
although he was not clad in buckskin and feathers, he wore exquisitely
beaded moccasins, a scarlet sash about his waist, a small owl feather
sticking in his hat band, and his ears were pierced, displaying huge
earrings of hammered silver. Yes, they decided that Peter Ottertail was
unmistakably a Mohawk Indian.

Tom and Jerry had never entertained any boys before, and, after the
first day at home, they began to fear things would be dull for their
friends at Christmas, who always spent such gay city holidays. They
need not have worried, however, for the boys found too much novelty even
in this forest home ever to feel the lack of city life. They of course,
fell in love with old Peter at once, and not a day passed but all four
of them could be seen driving, snowshoeing, tobogganing, skating,
with the old Mohawk looming not very far distant; and, as Christmas
approached, with all its church interests, they swung into the
festivities of the remote mission with all the zest that boys in their
early teens possess.

The young Southerners had never visited at a minister's house before,
and at first they were very sedate, laughed not too loudly, and carried
themselves with the dignity of little old gentlemen; but within a day
they learned that, because a man was a great, good, noble missionary, it
did not necessarily mean that he must look serious and never enjoy any
fun with the boys. Mr. Duncan always made it a rule that no house in
existence must be more attractive to Tom and Jerry than their own home,
and that it depended very largely upon their father as to whether they
longed to stay in their own