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"And so it has been with the swallow folk since that time. "But," went on the old swallow, "our foreparents learned their lesson, and since that time we always bring up our children to be very obedient. No doubt you have noticed how very well they mind." One of little Luke's best friends among the wild folk was A-bal-ka the Chipmunk.
In their place there were a number of red squirrels, who chattered and scolded and coughed as red squirrels always do even to this day. These were the foreparents of all the red squirrels in the world. "'Now, said Gloos-cap to the other creatures, 'take warning by the fate of these who are now squirrels and cease from being quarrelsome, envious, and greedy."
"Ther mornin' ye fust come by ... an' stopped thar in ther high road ... I'd jest been readin' somethin' thet ... was writ by one of my foreparents ... way back, upwards of a hundred y'ars ago, I reckon."
For the magician had cast a spell upon the man and the woman and they had become partridges and had been sheltering themselves from the storms of winter under a snowdrift, after the manner of their kind, and now came forth to greet the pleasant spring. And these two were the first partridges, the foreparents of all the partridges that are now in the world.
"Ye stands ternight fer ther same things ye've always stud fer," she said, "ye stands fer home an' decency fer ther restin' place of dead foreparents an' ther bornin' of new gin'rations fer green leaves an' happiness an' ther only death ye gives countenance to is thet of folks thet goes straight ter God, an' not them thet's destined fer torment."
Now he was sure he had heard the double whippoorwill call! In five minutes more he would be saved yet five minutes might be too long. Dorothy paused. "Ye sees," she said with a deep gravity, "from ther start, in this country, our folks hev been despitefully tricked an' misused by ther offspring of thet Indian child thet our foreparents tuck in an' befriended.
"Hit was right hyar thet we diskivered we loved one another," she said, softly, "an' ef ye'd ever read thet book upstairs I reckon ye'd onderstand. Our foreparents planted this tree hyar in days of sore travail when they'd done come from nigh ter ther ocean-sea at Gin'ral George Washington's behest, an' they plum revered hit from thet time on."
"She's lettin' him talk too long," growled a voice, and in monosyllables Rick Joyce growled back, "Shet up he'll be dead a long time." But outside Dorothy had turned again to the man. "You an' yore foreparents hev plotted an' worked evil since ther fust days ther white man come hyar, Bas," she declared.
It runs in your blood. The Mee-ko family have always been meddlers. It was the first of your tribe, as all the wood folk know, who, with his tattling; tongue, set Mal-sum the Wicked Wolf trying to kill Gloos-cap the Good. Your foreparents were thieves and murderers too; and you take after them. "The Master of Life has formed some of us so that we must kill to live and for us to kill is lawful.
Dorothy turned toward him and her lips relaxed their shyness into a friendly smile then impulsively she demanded: "Did yore foreparents dwell hyarabouts a long time back?" Thornton's face, with the moonlight upon it, stiffened into a mask-like reticence at this touching upon the sensitive topic which threatened his identification as a hunted man.
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