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CHAPTER XXI
August
AN INDIAN DINNER
O
UR host had rented for the month of August a somewhat primitive little cottage on the borders of Long Island Sound, where his children could "live on the water" and enjoy cool breezes. To supplement the limited accommodations of the cottage, a large tent was used as a dining-room.
It was to a dinner in the tent that we were bidden, and were much surprised and pleased at our entrance to find it tricked out to resemble an Indian wigwam. The invitation was for an "Indian dinner," abomt which we had wondered and speculated.
The hangings were of rich red, tan, and tawny yellow stuff, and among them was evidently a camel's-hair shawl, which our hostess hastened to explain was East Indian, when rallied about her ideas of the luxury of the aborigines.
The table was bare of drapery, but placed lengthwise and crosswise upon it were two beadwork strips half a yard wide, such as are sold in the shops for decorative purposes, and at their intersection in the centre of the table was a low jar of Indian pottery filled with eagle and peacock feathers. Two little birch-bark canoes flanked it on either side, one holding fruit, the other nuts. The
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