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Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946

"Rolf in the Woods"

"
"Well, you see Quonab knows what he's doing."
"Yah."
"Well, let him do it. He or I'll sleep alongside the child she'll
be all right," and Rolf thought of those horrible brown crawlers
under the bedding indoors.
Rolf had much confidence in the Indian as a doctor, but he had
more in his own mother. He was determined to give Annette the
quinine, yet he hesitated to interfere. At length, he said: "It
is cool enough now; I will put these thin curtains round her
bed."
"Ugh, good!" but the red man sat there while it was being done.
"You need not stay now; I'll watch her, Quonab."
"Soon, give more medicine," was the reply that Rolf did not want.
So he changed his ruse. "I wish you'd take that partridge and
make soup of it. I've had my hands in poison ivy, so I dare not
touch it."
"Ach, dot shall I do. Dot kin myself do," and the fat mother,
laying the recent baby in its cradle, made cumbrous haste to cook
the bird.
"Foiled again," was Rolf's thought, but his Yankee wit was with
him. He laid one hand on the bowl of snake-root tea. It was
lukewarm. "Do you give it hot or cold, Quonab?"
"Hot.


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