Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/272

 had nothing to do, she knew, with the wealth or social position of his parents; for her own wealthy friends more often lacked this distinction than not. Bennet did not have it; nor his friends. But her father had had it, though originally he had been poor; others of his friends had possessed it. Barney did.

"I know now why grandfather feared the Rock all these years, Barney; it was for fear you'd come back! That's why Halford and the other man waited there; for word of you! That's why the house was built and left to wait; for you! Never think of yourself again as—as you said you did sometimes! Now tell me what some of those things meant. He said—that Indian—that your mother went away in the moon of the wild rice gathering; what does that mean?"

"It is only English for the Chippewa way of saying September, Miss Carew."

"And the moon of the breaking snowshoes?"

"That's the way the Chippewa speaks of April."

"Do they? That's beautiful, Barney. I didn't realize that you spoke Chippewa; you would, of course. But I didn't think of it. You see, Sam Green Sky and Asa and the other Indians we have around always speak English with us; of course, I knew they didn't among themselves."

"I can't remember learning Chippewa," Barney said. "But I can remember learning English."

"I hadn't really known about you, Barney; I thought I did. I've been thinking about you, really, a very great deal; but I see I didn't succeed in placing you in your boyhood."

He said nothing but stood gazing at her questioningly and waited; and more clearly than ever before she pictured him,—the little white boy, with the good,