"Yes," replied Seth: "she stood by me there in the sun as much as an
hour, and told the cutest story you ever heard about the Injins
believing that corn is a live creter, and appeared once, in the
shape of a young man named Odahmin, to one of the Injin chiefs
called Hiawatha; and they had a wrastle. Hiawatha beat, and killed
the other feller, and buried him up in the ground; but he hadn't
more 'n got him under 'fore up he come agin, or ruther some
Injin-corn come up: but they called the green leaves his clothes;
and the tossel atop, his plume; and the sprouts was his hands, each
holding an ear of corn, that he give to Hiawatha, just as a feller
that's whipped gives another his hat, you know."
"Do the Injins believe all that now?" asked Mehitable
contemptuously.
"They do so. But, I tell you, I never knew how those two rows got
hoed while she was talking: they seemed to slip right along somehow;
and, after she was gone, the time seemed dreadful short till
sundown, I was thinking so busy of what she said."
"Guess you'd been cross 'cause that cultivator didn't come; hadn't
you?" asked Mehitable slyly.
"Yes: I felt real mad all the morning about it, and was pretty
grumpy to Windsor; for I thought he might as well have sent a week
ago.
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