The Shagganappi eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 300 pages of information about The Shagganappi.

The Shagganappi eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 300 pages of information about The Shagganappi.

“You will be tired, Constantine,” said Mrs. Clark, with motherly care, “and not accustomed to this extreme heat.  Come at once and rest.  I have made a great jug of lemonade.  Do come in at once.”

“If it’s all the same to you, aunt, may I have some tea?  And do please call me ‘Con,’” he replied.  No shadow of expression crossed The Eena’s face, but when Mrs. Clark had led Con indoors, the Indian turned to Banty and remarked quietly, “You’re right some ways; he wants tea, and the sun shines in his shoes, but he good King Georgeman all same, I know, me.”

“Guess you’re right, Eena,” said Banty.  “There’s something about him that’s fine, just fine and simple and—­English.”  The Indian nodded and he made but one more comment.  “He brave,” he muttered.

“How do you know that?” asked Banty.

“The—­what you name it?  I think you call it nostril of his nose long, thin, fine.  That shows brave people.  When nostril just round and thick like bullet-hole it shows coward.”

Banty laughed aloud, but all the same his fingers flew to his own nostrils, and notwithstanding his merriment he was gratified to find fairly long, narrow breathing spaces at the edge of his own nose.

“What queer old ideas your people have, Eena,” he commented.

“But it’s right, even if queer,” smiled the Indian.  “You see, maybe this summer, Indian’s right about that nose.”

But Mrs. Clark and Con were now returning, Con having swallowed his tea, and, looking refreshed by it, he settled himself in a porch chair, stretched out his long legs and thoughtfully regarded the toes of his patent leathers.  Banty grinned openly, but The Eena gravely shook his head, and, with the tip of his little finger, touched his own fine, narrow nostril.  Banty understood, but then he and The Eena always understood each other, and now the boy knew that the old hunter meant to remind him of the best qualities of his English cousin, and to overlook the little oddities that after all did not carry weight when it came to a boy’s character.

“King Georgeman, you come with me to-morrow, me fish, or hunt?” asked the Indian, his solemn eyes regarding Con kindly.  Banty explained the term “King Georgeman.”

“Indeed I will, if you’ll have me!” exclaimed Con, excitedly.  “I’ve bought some decent clothes, and will look fitter in them than I do in these togs.  Don’t I look bally in them?”

“I not sabe ‘bally,’ me,” answered the Indian.

The pink King Georgeman looked puzzled.

“He means he doesn’t understand what ‘bally’ is,” explained Banty.

Con laughed.  “Tell him that I’m ‘bally,’ in these clothes; he’ll grasp then what a fearful thing ‘bally’ means.”

It was that remark, “poking fun” at his own appearance, that thoroughly won Banty’s loyalty to his cousin from over seas.  A chap that could openly laugh and jeer at his own peculiarities must surely be a good sort, so forthwith Banty pitched in heart and soul to arrange all kinds of excursions and adventures, and The Eena planned and suggested, until it seemed that all the weeks stretching out into the holiday months were to be one long round of sport and pleasure in honor of the lanky King Georgeman, who was so anxious to fall easily into the ways of the West.

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The Shagganappi from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.