Observing that the bateau was afloat, Mandy Ann was delighted. She felt doubly secure, now, from pursuit. Pulling a muddy carrot from her pocket she held it up to the woodchuck, which was nuzzling affectionately at her curls. But the smell of the fresh earth reminded the little animal of something which he loved even better than Mandy Ann--even better, indeed, than a juicy carrot. He longed to get away, for a little while, from the loving but sometimes too assiduous attention with which his little mistress surrounded him--to get away and burrow to his heart's content in the cool brown earth, full of grass-roots. Ignoring the carrot, he clambered down in his soft, loose-jointed fashion, from Mandy Ann's shoulder, and ran along the gunwale to the bow. When he saw that he could not reach shore without getting into the water, which he loathed, he grumbled squeakingly, and kept bobbing his round head up and down, as if he contemplated making a jump for it.
At these symptoms Mandy Ann, who had been eyeing him, called to him severely. "Naughty!" she cried. "Come back this very instant, sir! You'd jes' go an' tell Granny on me! Come right back to your muzzer this instant!" At the sound of her voice the little animal seemed to think better of his rashness. The flashing and rippling of the water daunted him. He returned to Mandy Ann's side and fell to gnawing philosophically at the carrot which she thrust under his nose.
This care removed, Mandy Ann took an irregular bundle out of the basket. It was tied up in a blue-and-white handkerchief. Untying it with extreme care, as if the contents were peculiarly precious, she displayed a collection of fragments of many-coloured glass and gay-painted china. Gloating happily over these treasures, which flashed like jewels in the sun, she began to sort them out and arrange them with care along the nearest thwart of the bateau. Mandy Ann was making what the children of the Settlement knew and esteemed as a "Chaney House." There was keen rivalry among the children as to both location and furnishing of these admired creations; and to Mandy Ann's daring imagination it had appeared that a "Chaney House" in the old bateau would be something surpassing dreams.