The Sun Maid's own heart echoed the cry with a keen pain, and she received the orphan's outburst with exceeding tenderness. Now, whatever One, the eldest, did the other young numerals all imitated, so that each was soon weeping copiously. Yet, from very excess of energy, their grief soon exhausted itself and they regarded each other with some curiosity. Then Three began to smile, in a shamefaced sort of way, not knowing how far his recovery of composure would be approved by sterner One.
After a habit familiar to him the latter opened his lips to reprove but, fortunately, refrained, as he discovered a tall, stoop-shouldered man crossing the parade-ground.
This gentleman seemed oddly out of place amid that company of immigrants and soldiers. Student and bookworm was written all over his fine, intellectual countenance, and his eyes had that absent expression that had made the commandant's wife call him a "dreamer."
His bearing impressed the Sun Maid with reverent awe; a feeling apparently not shared by his sons. For Three ran to him and shook him violently, to secure attention, as he eagerly exclaimed:
"Oh, father! We've found one of 'em already! A heathen. Or, any way, a heatheny sort of a girl, but not Indian. She doesn't know how to read, and she hasn't any Bible. Come and give her one and teach her quick!"
"Right there with my brothers. That yellow-headed girl. She's nice. Are all the heathen as pretty as she is?"
"My son, that young person? Surely, you are mistaken. She must be the daughter of some resident at the Fort, or of some traveller like ourselves."
"I don't believe she is. She's been taking care of herself all day. I haven't heard anybody tell her 'Don't' once. If she belonged to folk they'd do it wouldn't they?"
"Very likely. Parents have to discipline their young. Don't drag me so. I'm walking fast enough."
"That's what I say, father. 'Don't' shows I belong to you. But I do wish you'd come. She might get away before you could catch her."
"I know it. My mother used to say you never did understand plain every-day things. That's why she had to take care of you the same as us. Oh! I wish we'd never come to this horrid place."
The reference to his wife and the child's grief roused the clergyman more completely than even an appeal for the heathen. Laying his thin hand tenderly upon the small rumpled head, he stroked it as he answered: