"Goodness me!" said Peter. "Of course you don't want to look for rabbits! I've got that jack-knife I bought for you right here in my pocket, and _now_ I guess you'll want to wait here for Uncle Peter! You will if Uncle Peter opens the big blade and gets you a stick to whittle."
"I want to whittle," said Buddy promptly. "I want to whittle a funny cat."
"There!" he said. "There's a stick, but if I was you I'd make a funny snake out of it. That stick don't look like it would make a cat. You make a snake, and if it don't turn out to be a snake, maybe it'll be a sword. Now, you stay right here, and Uncle Peter won't be gone very long. I'm going to put you right back in among these bushes, and don't you move."
When Peter left the shanty-boat he had felt that he could walk up to Jane with the front of a lion and demand shelter for himself and for Buddy all the advantages of a home. From that distance it had seemed quite reasonable, for he owned the house and the small plot of ground on which it stood. Ownership ought to give some rights, and he had planned just what he would say. He would tell Jane he had come. Then he would tell her he had reformed, and how he had reformed, and that he was a changed man and was going to work hard and make things comfortable for her, and give up shanty-boating and the river and all the things he had loved. He would say he now saw all these were bad for his character. Then, when she got used to that, he would incidentally mention Buddy, and tell her what a nice little fellow he was, and what a steadying effect the boy would have on his shiftless life. Then he would get Buddy, and his sister would see what a fine boy Buddy was, and wrap her arms around him, and weep. Peter was sure she would weep. And there would be a home for Buddy with a woman in it!
But if Jane objected--as she might--Peter meant to set his foot down hard. It was his house and he could do what he wished with it. That he had allowed Jane to possess it in single peace was well enough, but it was his house. That would bring her to time--it----
The nearer he had approached the house, however, the more doubtful he had become that Jane would welcome him and that she would, after a little talk, order him to bring Buddy in. The closer he came to Jane the better he recalled the many times he had fled precipitately after doing her chores, and his many moist and mournful receptions.