“Oh, Maw, you just ought to seen me; you just want to come this afternoon—­I’m the Jim Dandy of the hull Tribe, an they’re going to make me Head Chief.  I killed that whaling old Woodchuck that pooty nigh killed Paw.  They couldn’t do a thing without me—­them fellers in camp.  They tried an’ tried more’n a thousand times to get that old Woodchuck—­yes, I bet they tried a million times, an’ I just waited till they was tired and give up, then I says, ’Now, I’ll show you how.’  First I had to point him out.  Them fellers is no good to see things.  Then I says, ‘Now, Sam and Yan, you fellers stay here, an’ just to show how easy it is when you know how, I’ll leave all my bosenarrers behind an’ go with nothing.’  Wall, there they stood an’ watched me, an’ I s-n-e-a-k-e-d round the fence an’ c-r-a-w-l-e-d in the clover just like an Injun till I got between him an’ his hole, and then I hollers and he come a-snortin’ an’ a-chatterin’ his teeth at me to chaw me up, for he seen I had no stick nor nothin’, an’ I never turned a hair; I kep’ cool an’ waited till jest as he was going to jump for my throat, then I turned and gave him one kick on the snoot that sent him fifty feet in the air, an’ when he come down he was deader’n Kilsey’s hen when she was stuffed with onions.  Oh, Maw, I’m just the bully boy; they can’t do nothin’ in camp ’thout me.  I had to larn ’em to hunt Deer an’ see things—­an’—­an’—­an’—­lots o’ things, so they are goin’ to make me Head Chief of the hull Tribe, an’ call me ‘Hawkeye,’ too; that’s the way the Injuns does.  It’s to be at four o’clock this afternoon, an’ you got to come.”

Burns scoffed at the whole thing and told Guy to get to work at the potatoes, and if he left down the bars so that the Pig got out he’d skin him alive; he would have no such fooling round his place.  But Mrs Burns calmly informed him that she was going.  It was to her much like going to see a university degree conferred on her boy.

Since Burns would not assist, the difficulty of the children now arose.  This, however, was soon settled.  They should go along.  It was two hours’ toil for the mother to turn the four brown-limbed, nearly naked, dirty, happy towsle-tops into four little martyrs, befrocked, beribboned, becombed and be-booted.  Then they all straggled across the field, Mrs. Burns carrying the baby in one arm and a pot of jam in the other.  Guy ran ahead to show the way, and four-year-old, three-year-old and two-year-old, hand in hand, formed a diagonal line in the wake of the mother.

They were just a little surprised on getting to camp to find Mrs. Raften and Minnie there in holiday clothes.  Marget’s first feeling was resentment, but her second thought was a pleasant one.  That “stuck-up” woman, the enemy’s wife, should see her boy’s triumph, and Mrs. Burns at once seized on the chance to play society cat.

“How do ye do, Mrs. Raften; hope you’re well,” she said with a tinge of malicious pleasure and a grand attempt at assuming the leadership.