There was other mending that was less rapid: In the stockade, where one nursed an arrow, another a bullet, wound; in the garrison hospital, where Kippis and a comrade stumped about on swathed feet; and on the Oliver gallery, where Lounsbury lay, his face not the usual fulness, and a trifle white.
The storekeeper, however, was lending entertainment, as hospitality and his popularity demanded.
"The idea of you little apes asking for stories," he was saying to his audience, "when such popping good ones are happening right under your nose!"
Felicia was the youngest of the seven. She gave back at him, prancing up and down insistently. "But we don't want stories of things around here," she cried wilfully. "We want lords and ladies, and you _gim_ 'em to us."
"Lords and ladies," sniffed Lounsbury. "Well, Felicia, stop that jumping-jack business and I'll begin."
A chorus of delight--then, the five disposed themselves, the boys (there were two) astride the storekeeper; the girls draping the swinging net at either side.
"Once upon a time," commenced Lounsbury, "in the middle of a gre-a-a-t, wi-i-i-de, fla-a-a-t country----"
"Now," interrupted James, who came next to Felicia. His inflection was rising and suspicious.
"Now," chimed in the others. They, too, did not fancy such familiar topography.
"Look here," said the narrator, "don't get it into your precious noddles that this Territory's the only flat country under the sun. There are other spots upon this green earth where you can see hundreds of miles in any direction."
"Well, this was such a place--great, wide, flat place. The lord lived there. He was called the Lord Harry--got his name from the way he acted; he was always making forced marches----"
Again suspicion, which Lounsbury ignored.
"And violent demands. Oo! my shin!" (This to James, whose heels were curled up under him.) "Violent demands, I said. And so he had the cheek--um--the impudence to love, to _love_----" He shut his eyes in silent rhapsody.
"Ah!" Lounsbury threw up his well hand helplessly. "_No_ name was splendid enough for her--not one. But he called her--for want of a better, mind you--he called her the Rose of the South."
"Bully! bully!" accompanied by the clapping of hands.