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“Now, the settlers will hide, and the Indians have to find them, and any redskin who is recognized gets shot,” Roosevelt outlined the rules.
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“I wish I had a sunbonnet,” said Alice, as she made a little nest for herself far down in the warm hay. “Settlers’ wives always wore sunbonnets.”
“You’re wearing an imaginary sunbonnet,” said her father. “Tie it tightly under your chin and I’ll get my imaginary gun ready. Keep quiet, boys, and hide far down there behind the hay.”
He helped the girls to crouch deep in the dry stack, Alice disliking the tickle of the hay on her neck and impatiently slapping at it while Ethel burrowed happily as a mole.
“Holler when you’re ready,” called Ted from the opposite side of the stack.
“Settlers never let Indians know where they are hiding,” objected their father, who had dug himself deep into a pile; more excited and intrigued by the game than the young ones.
The Indians finally advanced, stealth being somewhat diminished by giggles from Archie and muttered orders to be quiet from Ted. Kermit gave a war whoop as he sprang at his father but landed in a heap where Roosevelt promptly dispatched him with an imaginary pistol and a very realistic “Bang.” Farther around the pile there were screams and snarls as Ted crept down on Ethel and grabbed her pig-tailed hair.
“You’re scalped!” he shouted. “You’re dead and scalped!”
Ethel promptly rolled on her back, walled up her eyes and made a melancholy face so realistic that Ted began to whimper.
“Make her stop, Father! She’s scaring me!”
“The game is over,” announced Roosevelt, lifting Kermit 35to his feet. Close by Alice and Archie had been tussling, Alice subduing the attack by tickling the Indian till he squirmed and giggled. “Brush the hay off your clothes. Now we’ll mend the stack again and see who can jump the farthest.”
“Oh, that’s easy!” bragged Ethel, reviving from the dead. “I can. I always do beat the boys.”
“You can’t beat me if Father will hold my glasses,” Ted objected.
“Stack hay and don’t argue. Archie, take off your jacket, you’ve got the back of your shirt full of hay.”
“It’s inside mine too,” said Kermit. “It scratches.”
“If we had been real Indians we wouldn’t have on shirts, we’d just have some stripes of war paint.” Ted began busily piling up the hay. “That game wasn’t fair anyway because Archie giggled and Alice forgot to shoot quick.”
“He fell on me.” She stood up. “Oh me! There’s Mame, scared to death to climb the ladder. Father, don’t make us go in yet.”
Mame’s head, wrapped in a crocheted wool scarf, showed halfway up the ladder. “Gentlemen to see the Colonel,” she announced, “Mrs. Roosevelt says it’s important.”