The Brentons | Page 6

earth could have found its way upward to mingle with his tears and
form the dust that grimed his face. Despite his tears and his grime,
however, Scott's manly temper roused itself to face his critic.
"I ain't!" he bellowed hotly at the air around him, without troubling
himself to look to see whence the strange voice had come.
The voice reflected somewhat of his opposition.
"You are, too. What's on your face?"
"Blackberry jam and soap," Scott answered, with a craftiness beyond
his years. He told the literal truth, but not all the truth. No need to
inform this critical stranger what was the crust that lay on top of all.
The critical stranger removed her pink countenance from the crack
between the front-fence pickets, and pushed the gate open just a very
little way. Seen through the larger crack, she stood revealed to Scott, a
slim little damsel of perhaps six years, her pink calico frock starched
until it stood out stiffly above her knees, and her topmost curl tied up
with a mammoth bow of green gauze ribbon, obviously culled from
some box of ancestral finery. She was a pretty child; but, even at that
tender age, the decision of her little mouth and chin was too

pronounced, the lift of her small head a trifle too self-satisfied.
"What's the matter, cry-baby?" she inquired, as Scott's interest in her
appearing was punctuated with a fresh gulp of woe.
"I've been spanked."
The critical light faded from her eyes, to be replaced by another light,
this time of interest.
"What for?"
"I was playing Indian in mother's jam."
Most damsels of that age would have asked for further particulars.
Instead,--
"Hh!" she sniffed, and the sniff spoke volumes as to the quality of her
young imagination.
Scott felt it lay upon him to defend himself from all which the sniff
implied.
"'Twas fun, too," he asserted suddenly, as, with a final wipe of his fist
across his eyes, he dismissed the outward traces of his grief. "You get
things to eat to take with you, and the bed's the camp, and you live
there for years and always, all alone. And then they smell the things
you're eating and--"
"Who's they?" the small girl demanded.
"Oh, wolves and Indians and things, and they come around and growl
awfully. But you aren't afraid. You take your gun, and crawl in under
the blankets and go on eating, sure they won't come in after you--"
"What do you eat?"
Had Scott been a few years older, he doubtless would have answered,--

"Pemmican."
As it was, however, he responded glibly,--
"Snake meat."
"Hh!" Again there came the sniff. "Snakes don't have meat. They only
wiggle."
Scott glared at her, during a moment of speechless hostility. Then
suddenly he fired upon her with what was to be the favourite weapon of
his later life.
"Prove it!" he ordered her defiantly.
But his defiance fell upon a surface quite impenetrable to its shaft.
"Sha'n't!"
"'Fraid cat!" he retorted curtly.
"Ain't!"
And then, for a short while, there was a silence. Out of the corner of her
eye, the little girl was watching Scott. Scott, his head ostentatiously
averted, was gazing at something he had dug up out of his trouser
pocket, something concealed within the curve of his smudgy hand.
Young as he was, his theories did not fail him. The silence prolonged
itself for minutes which seemed to them both like hours. Then the
eternal feminine yielded to the sting of curiosity.
"What you got?" she asked him, as the gate swung open just a little
wider.
Scott was too canny to yield one whit of his advantage. His hand shut
into a fist.
"That's telling."

The gate swung open wider yet, and the small girl marched through the
opening.
"Tell me," she said imperiously. "I want to see it."
Scott still held himself aloof, still held his trophy concealed from her
curious eyes. She tried to grasp his hand, missed it, then succeeded.
Then she tried to pry open the tight-shut fingers.
"Show me!" she ordered.
He shook his head, smiling derisively at her, while her strong little
fingers did their best to pluck open his hard little fist.
Without another word, she bent above his hand. An instant later, the
hand flew open, and the ball of the opening thumb showed the prints of
small, sharp teeth.
"What is it?" she asked once more.
Scott's voice dropped to a murmur which was charged with mystery.
"It's a back tooth of the whale that swallowed Jonah."
Instantly she struck his hand a blow that sent his trophy flying off into
the thick grass beside the step.
"It is not," she said shrilly. "It's nothing but a dirty old chicken bone, so
there!"
And then,