Then she
stepped into the brook, but finding it too cold for her she came out again
at once. Then she stood shivering till Pierre, after drying her feet on
his blanket, once more wrapped her up and seated her on a fallen tree
beside him. The child kept up a continual prattle, of which, of course,
Pierre understood not a word. He could only smile and stroke the little
fair head. When he spoke to her in his own language the child gazed at
him in wide-eyed wonder, and at last laughed gleefully and began to pat
his face, talking a lot of baby gibberish, such as she imagined Pierre
was addressing to her.
By and by Pierre remembered he was hungry. Taking some barley bread
and dried meat out of the bag he carried at his waist, he offered the
choicest bits to his tiny companion, and the two made a good breakfast.
Out of a strip of birchbark the lad twisted a cup and gave the child
to drink. Then, lifting her to his shoulder, he resumed his journey.
As the sun rose and the day grew warm Pierre let the child walk by his
side; but the tender little feet were not used to such work, and almost
immediately she cried to be taken up again. On this Pierre improvised
her a clumsy pair of moccasins, made of strips of his blanket.
These the little one regarded at first with lofty contempt, but when she
found they enabled her to run by her protector's side she was delighted.
It was necessary to stop often and rest long, so our travelers made slow
progress; but at noon, climbing a bluff which overlooked the river for
miles in either direction, Pierre was delighted to find himself within
two or three miles of the mouth.
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