Page:Nattie Nesmith (1870).pdf/170

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on the ground, near the fire. His face and tones indicated his interest.

"You had better mind the white squaw," he said; "for the old chief thinks much of her. She may tell him a tale that will displease him, on his return; for I see that she hath a fiery spirit. If the old chief should get angered, he might do us much harm."

Pink Ear bowed her head in silence. Nattie now began to show Blue Top how to shake the mats, how to fold the blankets and arrange them in a pile, while Brown Wren, the youngest of the three, was set to scalding the begrimed water-buckets and wooden bowls.

It took several days to get things arranged to Nettie's mind. She sent the boy to the forest for hemlock twigs of which to make brooms; and even the poor old man was driven out to cut some long, smooth poles on which to tie the hemlock. With these, she set the squaws sweeping down the festoonery of cobwebs which over-spread the