Charles had taken every precaution to have his brother appear as little as possible like a savage, when he restored him to his family; and now, without mentioning that he would like raw meat better than all their dainties, he went to the kitchen to superintend the cooking of some Indian succotash, and buffalo-steak very slightly broiled.

For some time, the imperfect means of communicating by speech was a great impediment to confidential intercourse, and a drawback upon their happiness.  Emma, whose imagination had been a good deal excited by the prospect of a new brother, was a little disappointed.  In her own private mind, she thought she should prefer for a brother a certain Oberlin student, with whom she had danced the last Thanksgiving evening.  Bessie, always a stickler for propriety, ventured to say to her mother that she hoped he would learn to use his knife and fork, like other people.  But to older members of the family, who distinctly remembered Willie in his boyhood, these things seemed unimportant.  It was enough for them that the lost treasure was found.

The obstacle created by difference of language disappeared with a rapidity that might have seemed miraculous, were it not a well-known fact that one’s native tongue forgotten is always easily restored.  It seems to remain latent in the memory, and can be brought out by favorable circumstances, as writing with invisible ink reappears under the influence of warmth.  Tidings of the young man’s restoration to his family spread like fire on the prairie.  People for twenty miles round came to see the Willie Wharton of whose story they had heard so much.  Children were disappointed to find that he was not a little rosy-cheeked boy, such as had been described to them.  Some elderly people, who prided themselves on their sagacity, shook their heads when they observed his rapid improvement in English, and said to each other,—­

“It a’n’t worth while to disturb neighbor Wharton’s confidence; but depend upon it, that fellow’s an impostor.  As for the mark on his arm that they call a prairie-dog, it looks as much like anything else that has legs.”

To the family, however, every week brought some additional confirmation that the stranger was their own Willie.  By degrees, he was able to make them understand the outlines of his story.  He did not remember anything about parting from his brother on that disastrous day, and of course could not explain what had induced him to turn aside to the Indian trail.  He said the Indians had always told him that a squaw, whose pappoose had died, took a fancy to him, and decoyed him away; and that afterward, when he cried to go back, they would not let him go.  From them he also learned that he called himself six years old, at the time of his capture; but his name had been gradually forgotten, both by himself and them.  He wandered about with that tribe eight summers and winters.  Sometimes, when they had but little food, he suffered with hunger;