day, but he must sit, or lie, on the ground, wrapping himself, as best he could, in his thread bare plaid. This was nothing short of cruelty; for the poor creature's rheumatism and pains were aggravated by the deprivation. It angered Nattie to hear him cough and wheeze as he often did, for hours together, but she would not suffer the squaws to brew herbs, which they said would heal him, because of the smoke and steam which it would occasion in the wigwam.
She set the boy sewing weasel skins together to make her a cap and muff; and the squaws she kept at basket-making, early and late, when they were not doing anything else, because she had heard that a French peddler was coming that way, to whom she hoped to sell the baskets, and obtain some finery to deck her own person.
Nattie was now so absorbed in her own selfishness that she thought of naught else. Her lost home was no longer mourned over as it had been; for there, she was subject to others; here, she was first.
