ver and makes them
spell things out of it. Oscar doesn't like the green book. It makes
him wriggle his nose--so; but Margaret is as fond of it as I am of
you. Oh, dear! Some day, all my mothers say, I, too, will have to sit
and look on the printing and spell words. I can, though, even now.
Listen, posies. D-o-g--that's--that's--I guess it's 'cat.' Isn't it,
posies? But you don't have to spell things, do you? I needn't either.
Not to-day, and maybe not to-morrow day. Because, you see, I runned
away. Oh, how I did run! So fast, so far, before I found your little
sisters, posies, dear. Then I guess I went to sleep, without ever
saying my 'Now I lay me,' and the black Feather-man came, and--that's
all."

Wahneenah had gone back to her household duties, for she had many
things on hand that day. Not the least, to make her neglected tepee a
brighter, fitter home for this stray sunbeam which the Great Spirit
had sent to her out of the sky, and into which He had breathed the
soul of her lost one. Indistinctly, she heard the murmuring of the
babyish voice at the threshold and occasionally caught some of the
words it uttered. These served but to establish her in her belief that
the child had more than mortal senses; else how should she fancy that
the blossoms would hear and understand her prattle?

"Listen. She talks to the weeds as the white men talk to us. She is a
witch," said the Man-Who-Kills to his neighbor in the circle, the
White Pelican.

"She is only a child of the pale-faces. The Black Partridge has set
her among us to move our hearts to pity."

"The White Pelican was ever a coward," snorted the Man-Who-Kills.

But the younger warrior merely turned his head and smiled
contemptuously. Then he critically scrutinized the ill-proportioned
figure of the ugly-tempered brave. The fellow's crooked back,
abnormally long arms and short legs were an anomaly in that race of
stalwart Indians, and the soul of the savage corresponded to his
outward development. For his very name had been given him in derision;
because, though he always threatened and always sneaked after his
prey, he had never been known to slay an enemy in open combat.

"That is as the tomahawks prove. The scalps hang close on the pole of
my wigwam," finally remarked the Pelican.

"Ugh! But there was never such a scalp as that of the papoose yonder.
It shall hang above all others in _my_ tepee. I have said it."

"Having said it, you may unsay it. That is no