After the paint was dry, they nailed up the vines; and Billy added to them some pine boughs with great clusters of green cones on them which were beautiful. Then they unpacked the boxes of furniture; and Billy showed Lucinda how to put up the chintz curtains in the sitting-room, and the white ones in the bedrooms, and, when it was all done, it looked so pretty that Billy could not help saying:-- "Don't you wish it was our house, Luce?" He always called her Luce for short. "Can't take time for no three-storied names 'n this country," said Billy; "two's too many." Lucinda blushed a little, and said:-- "We can make ours just as pretty some day, Billy." "That's so, Luce," said Billy: "you'll get lots o' idees out o' Miss March. She's what I call a reel home-y woman. I hain't never seen nobody I've took to so since I left hum." When everything was ready, the house and the barns and sheds all in order, and the whole enclosure raked over and made as tidy as possible, Billy said:-- "Now, we'll jest keep 'em waitn' one more day. You make up a lot o' your best bread, and churn some butter; 'n' I'll go over to Pine's and pick two or three gallons o' raspberries. They're just ripe to pick now, 'n' this is the last chance I'll get. Then you 'n' Miss March can preserve 'em. I know she wants some. I heard her say so when we was a comin' up Hardscrabble Canyon." Something besides raspberries Billy brought back from Pine's ranch that night,--something that he never dreamed of getting, something which pleased him so greatly he fairly snapped his fingers with delight,--it was a little pet fawn. "Old-man Pine" had had it for several months; it had strayed down out of the woods, when it was too young to find its way back; he had found it early one morning lapping milk out of the milk-pan he kept outside his cabin-door for his dog Spotty. He had caught it without difficulty, and tamed it, so that it followed him about like a puppy. Sometimes it would disappear for a few days, but always came back again. It was a lovely little creature, almost white under its belly, and on the under side of its legs; but all the rest of a beautiful bright red. When Billy told old Mr. Pine about the March family, and about the twin brother and sister, who were such nice children, the old man said:-- "Don't you think they'd like to have the fawn? It's a pesky little thing, for all it's so pretty, an' I'm tired on't. There was a man offered me seven dollars for it, a while ago, but I thought I didn't want to let it go; but ye may have it for them children if ye want it. Ye can tell 'em I sent it to 'em; an' I'm the oldest settler in this valley, tell 'em. Yer must bring 'em over to see me some time." Billy promised to do so.