The Green Door | Page 6

house except on the Sabbath day. Then, in
fair or foul weather, they all went to meeting, ten miles through the
dense forest. Captain John Hopkins strode ahead, his gun over his
shoulder. Goodwife Hopkins rode the gray horse, and the girls rode by
turns, two at a time, clinging to the pillion at her back. Letitia was
never allowed to wear her own pretty plain dress, with the velvet collar,
even to meeting.
"It would create a scandal in the sanctuary," said Goodwife Hopkins.
So Letitia went always in the queer little coarse and scanty gown,

which seemed to her more like a bag than anything else; and for outside
wraps she had--of all things--a homespun blanket pinned over her head.
Her great-great-grandmother and her great-great-aunts were all fitted
out in a similar fashion. Goodwife Hopkins, however, had a great
wadded hood and a fine red cloak.
There was never any fire in the meeting-house, and the services lasted
all day, with a short recess at noon, during which they went into a
neighboring house, sat round the fire, warmed their half frozen feet,
and ate cold corn-cakes and pan-cakes for luncheon. There were no
pews in the meeting-house, nothing but hard benches without backs. If
Letitia fidgetted, or fell asleep, the tithing-men rapped her. Letitia
would never have been allowed to stay away from meeting, had she
begged to do so, but she never did. She was afraid to stay alone in the
house because of Indians.
Quite often there was a rumor of hostile Indians in the neighborhood,
and twice there were attacks. Letitia learned to load the guns and hand
the powder and bullets.
She grew more and more homesick as the days went on. They were all
kind to her, and she became fond of them, especially of the
great-great-grandmother of her own age, and the little great-great-aunts,
but they seldom had any girlish sports together. Goodwife Hopkins
kept them too busily at work. Once in a while, as a special treat, they
were allowed to play bean-porridge-hot for fifteen minutes. They were
not allowed to talk after they went to bed, and there was little
opportunity for girlish confidences.
However, there came a day at last when Captain Hopkins and his wife
were called away to visit a sick neighbor, some twelve miles distant,
and the four girls were left in charge of the house. At seven o'clock the
two younger went to bed, and Letitia and her great-great-grandmother
remained up to wait for the return of their elders, as they had been
instructed. Then it was that the little great-great-grandmother showed
Letitia her treasures. She had only two, and was not often allowed to
look at them, lest they wean her heart away from more serious things.
They were kept in a secret drawer of the great chest for safety, and

were nothing but a little silver snuff-box with a picture on the top, and
a little flat glass bottle, about an inch and a half long.
"The box belonged to my grandfather, and the bottle to his mother. I
have them because I am the eldest, but I must not set my heart on them
unduly," said Letitia's great-great-grandmother.
Letitia tried to count how many "greats" belonged to the ancestors who
had first owned these treasures, but it made her dizzy. She had never
told the story of the little green door to any of them. She had been
afraid to, knowing how shocked they would be at her disobedience.
Now, however, when the treasure was replaced, she was moved in
confidence, and told her great-great-grandmother the story.
"That is very strange," said her great-great-grandmother, when Letitia
had finished. "We have a little green door, too; only ours is on the
outside of the house, in the north wall. There's a spruce tree growing
close up against it that hides it, but it is there. Our parents have
forbidden us to open it, too, and we have never disobeyed."
She said the last with something of an air of superior virtue. Letitia felt
terribly ashamed.
"Is there any key to your little green door?" she asked meekly.
For answer her great-great-grandmother opened the secret drawer of the
chest again, and pulled out a key with a green ribbon in it, the very
counterpart of the one in the satin-wood box.
Letitia looked at it wistfully.
"I should never think of disobeying my parents, and opening the little
green door," remarked her great-great-grandmother, as she put back the
key in the drawer. "I should think something dreadful would happen to
me. I have heard it whispered that the door opened into the future. It
would be dreadful to be all alone in the future, without one's kins-folk."
"There may not be any Indians or catamounts