ardon," "I meant no offense," and even "Excuse me" were
things I had never learned to say. I had learned to fight any one who
took offense at me; and if they didn't like my style they could lump
it--such was my code of manners, and the code of my class. To beg pardon
was to knuckle under--and it took something more than I was master of in
the way of putting on style to ask to be excused, even if the element of
back-down were eliminated. Remember, I had been "educated" on the canal.
So I tried to look her out of countenance, grew red, retreated, and went
about some sort of needless work without a word--completely defeated. I
thought she seemed rather to like this; and that evening I went over and
offered Mrs. Fewkes some butter and milk, of which I had a plenty.

I was soon on good terms with the Fewkes family. Old Man Fewkes told me
he was going to Negosha--a region of which I had never heard. It was
away off to the westward, he said; and years afterward I made up my mind
that the name was made up of the two words Nebraska and Dakota--not very
well joined together. Mrs. Fewkes was not strong for Negosha; and when
Fewkes offered to go to Texas, she objected because it was so far.

"Why," said the old man indignantly, "it hain't only a matter of fifteen
hundred mile! An' the trees is in constant varder!"

He still harped on Negosha, though, and during the evening while we were
fattening up on my bread and meat, which I had on a broad hint added to
our meal, he told me that what he really wanted was an estate where he
could have an artificial lake and keep some deer and plenty of ducks and
geese. Swans, too, he said could be raised at a profit, and sold to
other well-to-do people. He said that by good farming he could get
along with only a few hundred acres of plow land. Mrs. Fewkes grew more
indulgent to these ideas as the food satisfied her hungry stomach.
Celebrate believed that if he could once get out among 'em he could do
well as a hunter and trapper; while Surajah kept listening to the
honking of the wild geese and planning to catch enough of them with
baited hooks to feed the whole family all the way to Negosha, and
provide plenty of money by selling the surplus to the emigrants. Rowena
sat in her ragged dress, her burst shoes drawn in under her skirt,
looking at her family with an expression of unconcealed scorn. When she
got a chance to speak to me, she did so in a very friendly manner.

"Did you ever see," sai