Hans Vanderbum lay fiat upon his back, for the atmosphere of the wigwam
was too warm for covering, his ponderous belly rising and falling like
a wave of the sea, and his throat giving forth that peculiar rattling
of the glottis, which might be mistaken for suffocation. The boys
certainly would have been outside, basking in the genial sunshine, had
not their mother, Keewaygooshturkumkankangewock, positively denied them
that coveted privilege. The commands of the father might be trampled
upon with impunity, but the young half-breeds knew better than to
disobey their mother.

"Shtop dat noise! shtop dat noise!" repeated Hans, raising his head
without stirring his body or limbs.

His broad face seemed all ablaze from its fiery red color, and the
threatening fury throned upon his lowering forehead would almost have
annihilated him who encountered it for the first time. As it was, the
two boys suddenly straightened their faces, and assumed an air of meek
penitence, as if suffering the most harrowing remorse for what they had
done; and the father, after glaring at them a moment, as if to drive in
and clinch the impression he had made, let his head drop back with a
dull thump upon the ground, and again closed his eyes.

The black, snaky orbs of the boys twinkled like stars through their
overhanging hair. Glancing first at their mother, who did not deign to
notice them, the eldest picked up his younger brother, who was grinning
from ear to ear with delight, and, summoning all his strength, he
poised him over the prostrate form of his father for a moment, and then
dropped him! The prolonged snore which was steadily issuing from the
throat of the sleeping parent, terminated in a sharp, explosive grunt.
As his eyes opened, the boys scrambled away like frogs to the opposite