Anna Balmer Myers

“ It’s a good thing we all like company pretty good, for I think sometimes people take this place for a regular boarding-house, the way they drop in at any time, just as like when we’re ready to set down for a meal as at any other hour. ”

“ Martin would have helped Amanda over the fence, but she ran from him, put up one foot, and was over it in a trice.
“Still a nimble-toes,” he said, laughing. “Mary, can you do as well?”
“Pooh, yes! Who can’t climb a fence?” The little girl was over it in a minute. The smaller children lay flat on the ground and squirmed through under the lower rail, while one of the boys climbed up, balanced himself on the top rail, then leaped into the grass.
“I see some berries!” cried Katie, and began to pick them.
“We’ll go in farther,” said Martin. “The bushes near the road have been almost stripped. ”

“ Manda, sing a Bear Charm Song!”
“Oh,” echoed Katie in alarm, and ran to the side of Amanda, while Martin lifted his head and stood, alert, looking into the woods in the direction of the noise. The crashing drew nearer, and then the figure of a man came running wildly through the bushes, waving his hands frantically in the air, then pressing them to his face.
“It’s Lyman Mertzheimer!” Amanda exclaimed.
“With hornets after him,” added Martin. ”

“ Only Martin had seen the look in her eyes, that mother-look of compassion.
“Very well, I’ll go on.”
“And, Charlie,” said Mary, “you keep quiet now and don’t break in when Manda talks.”
“Well,” the story-teller resumed, “the Indians who lived out in the woods, far from towns or cities, had to find all their own food. They caught fish, shot animals and birds, planted corn and gathered berries. Some of them they ate at once, but many of them they dried and stored away for winter use. ”