“Now that you have some strength, do you want to dress and then come down and sit with me in the sitting-room and see me iron?” asked Aunt Stanshy, after breakfast.

“O, yes, and not go to school?”

“No school to-day, when that cold is on you.”

Charlie crawled into his clothes and went down stairs to the sitting-room.  Aunt Stanshy was ironing.  She generally did her ironing in the sitting-room, as the kitchen was very small, and, on a hot day, it was so hot there that one felt like sizzling at the touch of water.

“Here are some picture-books for you.”

“O, thanks, thanks, aunty!”

“One of those picture-books is about Indian wars.”

“Did you ever see an Injun?”

“Not the raving, tearing, tomahawk kind.”

“I shouldn’t want to see that one.”

“Several years ago sort of tame ones used to come round and have baskets to sell.  My great-great-grandmother had quite an adventure with the real kind once.”

“O, tell it to me!”

Opening his eyes to that peculiar width appropriate to the hearing of an Indian story, Charlie intently listened.

“My great-great-grandmother was all alone one day in the house, for the men-folks had gone to market or somewhere.  She happened to be looking out of the window, when she saw an Indian looking over the fence.  What a customer!  He was an ugly-looking crittur, I don’t doubt.  What could she do, for he might be tomahawking her in less than no time?  Wimmin folks, in them days, were not like Miss Persnips, that keeps the little thread-and-needle store on the corner, without any snap to ’em.  My great-great-grandmother just tore round that room at a lively rate.  She slammed the shutters, she banged about the chairs.  Then she pretended that there were lots of men-folks in the house, and she kept calling to Tom, Bill, Jerry, Nehemiah.  O, she had a string of ’em, all on her tongue’s end!  I don’t know but she pointed a gun out of the winder, man-fashion.  What did that crittur do but gather up his traps and walk off as harmless as a bumble-bee when his sting is gone.  I’ve heard with my own eyes my grandmother tell that story about her grandmother.”

“Heard her with your eyes?”

“Of course not!  With my ears, ears.  Where are yours, for pity’s sake?  There is an old garrison-house on the other side of the river, and I will show it to you some time, or I will show you what is left.  They have built over the garrison-house and back of it, making a farm-house of it, but there is something still to be seen.”

“What a blessed old aunty!” thought Charlie.  And the wind, what grand music it made!  The chimney seemed to be a big bass-viol that this north-easter played on.

At noon Aunt Stanshy said, “What will you have for dinner?”

“May I order it, the way I did at a saloon in Boston last summer?  May I write what I want on paper, and put it on the table?”