s spectacles seemed to twinkle as he ran his
eye over the slate; and after making out two or three rather
savage-looking _s_'s, as many long-legged _p_'s, a squat _h_ or two, a
big bottle-bellied _b_, three or four gigantic _l_'s, a broken-backed
_k_ or two, a high-shouldered _w_, a heavy-bottomed _d_, and a long
slim-tailed _y_, it struck him, at length, that speech-belt, Long
Knife, knapsack, Silver Heels, wigwam, and powder-monkey, were the
items concerning which Master Charlie desired further enlightenment.

"For information touching these matters, my dear Charles," then said
Uncle Juvinell, "I will pass you over to Willie and Dannie, who, I
dare say, are quite as well posted up in matters of this kind, as your
old uncle; for, if I mistake not, they have just been reading Catlin's
book on the Indians, and Gulliver's Travels in Brobdignag."

"How is it," inquired Ellen, "that Washington, being the good man that
he was, could have taken part in that wicked war between the French
and English about a country that didn't belong to either of them, but
to the poor Indians?"

Now, although Uncle Juvinell was satisfied in his own mind that
Washington's conduct in this matter was just what it should have been,
yet, for all that, he was a little puzzled how to answer this question
in a way that the little folks would rightly understand.

"This very thing, my dear niece," replied he after a moment's pause,
"grieved and troubled his mind a great deal, as you may well believe:
but he knew, that, if the English did not get possession of this land,
the French would; and this, by increasing the strength of the enemy,
would by and by endanger the safety of his own native land, and even
the lives and liberties of his countrymen. And he also knew that it
would be far better for the spread of useful knowledge and the true
religion, that all this rich country should be in the hands of some
Christian people, who would make it a place fit to live in, and to be
peaceful and prosperous and happy in, than that it should be left
entirely to those barbarous savages, who only made of it a place to
hunt and to fish in, to fight and scalp, and to burn and torture each
other like devils in. Besides this, it is the duty of every true
patriot (and no one knew this better than he) to serve and defend the
country, under the protection of whose laws he has lived in peace and
plenty, against all her enemies, whether at home or abroad, even
should she