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' to be!" Nearly a week went by before Rosy-Lilly saw another chance to assail McWha's forbidding defences. This time she made what her innocent heart conceived to be a tremendous bid for the bad-tempered woodsman's favour. Incidentally, too, she revealed a secret which the Boss and Walley Johnson had been guarding with guilty solicitude ever since her coming to the camp. It chanced that the Boss and Johnson together were kept away from camp one night till next morning, laying out a new "landing" over on Fork's Brook. When it came time for Rosy-Lilly to be put to bed, the honour fell, as a matter of course, to Jimmy Brackett. Rosy-Lilly went with him willingly enough, but not till after a moment of hesitation, in which her eyes wandered involuntarily to the broad, red face of McWha behind its cloud of smoke. As a nursemaid, Jimmy Brackett flattered himself that he was a success--till the moment came when Rosy-Lilly was to be tucked into her bunk. Then she stood and eyed him with solemn question. "What's wrong, me honey-bug?" asked Brackett, anxiously. "You hain't heard me my prayers!" replied Rosy-Lilly, with a touch of severity in her voice. "Eh? What's that?" stammered Brackett, startled quite out of his wonted composure. "Don't you know little girls has to say their prayers afore they goes to bed?" she demanded. "No!" admitted Brackett, truthfully, wondering how he was going to get out of the unexpected situation. "Walley Johnson hears me mine!" continued the child, her eyes very wide open as she weighed Brackett's qualifications in her merciless little balance. Here, Brackett was misguided enough to grin, bethinking him that now he "had the laugh" on the Boss and Walley. That grin settled it. "I dess you don't know how to hear me say 'em, Jimmy!" she announced inexorably. And picking up the skirt of her blue homespun "nightie," so that she showed her little red woollen socks and white deer-hide moccasins, she tripped forth into the big, noisy room. At the bright picture she made, her flax-gold hair tied in a knob on top of her head that it might not get tangled, the room fell silent instantly, and every eye was turned upon her. Nothing abashed by the scrutiny, she made her way sedately down the room and across to McWha's bench. Unable to ignore her, and angry at the consciousness that he was embarrassed, McWha eyed her with a grim stare. But Rosy-Lilly put out her hands to him confidingly
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