ze!"

"Yes. I'm a woman now, almost. How glad I am to see you! How's Abel?
Where is he?"

"Must be glad, if you'd let so many years go by without once comin' to
visit me."

"I didn't know that you'd be pleased to have me. I didn't treat you
well, to leave you as I did. But where's Abel?"

"Home. Trying to sell out. My land! How pretty you've growed! Only
that white dress and hair a-streamin'; be you dressed for a party,
child?"

"Oh, no, indeed! I'll run and get something to help you out with, if
you'll be patient."

"Have to be, I reckon, since I'm stuck tight. No hurry. The oxen'll
rest. I've heard about you, out home--how 't you'd found a rich
minister to take you in an' eddicate you, an' your keepin' half-Indian
still. Might have taught you to brush your hair, I 'low; an' from
appearances you'd have done better to have stayed with me. You hain't
growed up very sensible, have you?"

The Sun Maid laughed, just as merrily and infectiously as when she had
first crept for shelter into Mercy Smith's cabin.

"Maybe not. I'm not the judge. I'll test my wisdom, though, by trying
to help you out of that mud. I'll be back in a moment."

She turned to run toward the house, but Mercy remonstrated:

"You can't help in them fine clothes. Ain't there no men around?"

"A few. Most of them are out of the village on a big hunting frolic.
We'll manage without."

"Humph! They'd better be huntin' Indians."

The girl looked up anxiously. "Is there any trouble?"

"Always trouble where the red-skins are."

Kitty departed, and the settler's wife watched her with feelings of
mingled admiration, anger, and astonishment.

"She's grown, powerful. Tall an' straight as an Indian, an' fair as a
snowflake. Such hair! I don't wonder she wears it that way, though I
wouldn't humor her by lettin' on. I've heard she did it to please her
'tribe' an' the old minister. Well, there's always plenty of fools.
They're a crop 'at never fails."

The Sun Maid reappeared. She had not stopped to change her white gown,
but she brought a pair of snow-shoes, and carried three or four short
planks across her strong, firm shoulder.

"My sake! Ain't you tough! I couldn't lift one them planks, rugged as
I call myself, let alone four. But--snow-shoes in the springtime?"

"Yes. I've learned a way for myself of helping the many who get mired
out here. See how quickly I can set you free."

Putting on the shoes, the girl walked straight over the mud, a