ling, the pumpkins had at
last been gathered in and stored in great piles in the barn--all
provision for winter pies,--and the fall, as the Americans call the
autumn, from the falling of the leaf, was drawing to a close when
Annie's wedding-day arrived.

The Watson and the Lee families were so much respected by their
neighbors, that when Tom was married, a year before, and now, also, all
seemed to think that they could not sufficiently show their good will,
unless they overwhelmed them with whatever might be thought most likely
to please in the way of dainties. For a day or two before, the bearer of
some present might have been seen each hour at the Lees' door.

"Please, Mrs. Lee, mother sends her compliments, and a pot of first-rate
quince preserves," said one.

"I've just run over with some real sweet maple, Mr. Lee," cried another.
"I reckon it's better sugar than you've tasted yet!"

Annie and her mother began to wonder how such an abundance of good
things as poured in upon them could ever be disposed of.

Breakfast had scarcely been cleared away on the morning of the appointed
day, when Tom and Katie came trotting to the door in their light wagon.
They had scarcely alighted when Uncle John arrived, driving up with his
wife and children. "Only just ahead of us, Tom!" he cried, as he jumped
out, and ran up the steps to kiss Annie. "Bless you, my girl!"

"I am so glad you are all come," said Annie, with a smiling, blushing
face. "Mother is so busy, and wishing so for Aunt Abby and Katie!"

"Aye, they're two good ones for setting things to rights!" cried Uncle
John; "but I say, Annie, we met a party of red ladies and gentlemen
coming here."

"What do you mean, uncle?"

"Why, half a dozen Indians, with their squaws and papooses are on the
road, and I told them to stop here, and I would trade with them--so get
something for them to eat, will you?"

The travellers soon made their appearance; a strange-looking set of
red-skinned, black-eyed Indians, wrapped in dirty, many-colored
blankets. The men were hard-featured, and degraded in their bearing, not
at all resembling the description we have received of their warlike
ancestors, before the fatal "fire water," as they call rum, had become
known to them; but some of the women had a soft, melancholy expression
of countenance, which was very pleasing. They carried their babies,
which were bandaged from head to foot, so that they could not move a
limb, in a kind of