"You might run to your nurse, and complain of me to her if you had one,"
she answered, pouting her lips contemptuously at him.

He colored; she went on boldly, and with eager play of gesture.

"You ought to be a man, for you are strong and big, but you let yourself
be kept like a child or a miserable girl; your only business is to hunt
for roots and berries, and fetch water in that wretched thing there. I
have learned to do that ever since I was as big as that!" and she
indicated a contemptibly little measure, with the outstretched pointed
fingers of her two hands, which were not less expressively mobile than
her features. "Phoh! you are stronger and taller than all the Amalekite
lads down there, but you never try to measure yourself with them in
shooting with a bow and arrows or in throwing a spear!"

"If I only dared as much as I wish!" he interrupted, and flaming scarlet
mounted to his face, "I would be a match for ten of those lean rascals."

"I believe you," replied the girl, and her eager glance measured the
youth's broad breast and muscular arms with an expression of pride.
"I believe you, but why do you not dare? Are you the slave of that man
up there?"

"He is my father and besides--"

"What besides?" she cried, waving her hand as if to wave away a bat.
"If no bird ever flew away from the nest there would be a pretty swarm in
it. Look at my kids there--as long as they need their mother they run
about after her, but as soon as they can find their food alone they seek
it wherever they can find it, and I can tell you the yearlings there have