Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/335

 this request, for Daily did not look or speak like a man who would take "no" for an answer unless he felt like it. So the boys leaned their wheels against convenient trees, seated themselves by Daily's side under the shade of another, while his two friends stretched their heavy frames upon the leaves close by, and the leader went on with his story.

"Us and our folks was raised right here in this neck of woods, we've always lived here, and we don't know no other country outside," said he. "We never had no fuss with nobody so long as we was let alone. We cultivated our little craps, shot our meat in the woods when we wanted it, ketched our trout in the brooks, sot lines through the ice for pickerel in winter, went to school when we wanted to, and were happy like the Injuns was before the white man come to this country and drove them out. First thing we knew, some fellers down in Washington, wherever that is, kicked up a war with somebody else, and sent word to our folks that they'd got to come and help fight it out. Well, they wouldn't do it, our