The Green Door | Page 7

there," ventured Letitia.

"There might be something a great deal worse," returned her
great-great-grandmother severely.
After that there was silence between the two, and possibly also a little
coldness. Letitia knitted and her great-great-grandmother knitted.
Letitia also thought shrewdly. She had very little doubt that the key
which she had just been shown might unlock another little green door,
and admit her to her past which was her ancestors' future, but she
realized that it was beyond her courage, even if she had the opportunity,
to take it, and use it provided she could find the second little green door.
She had been so frightfully punished for disobedience, that she dared
not risk a second attempt. Then too how could she tell whether the
second little green door would admit her to her grandmother's
cheese-room? She felt so dizzy over what had happened, that she was
not even sure that two and two made four, and b-o-y spelt boy,
although she had mastered such easy facts long ago. Letitia had arrived
at the point wherein she did not know what she knew, and therefore,
she resolved that she would not use that other little key with the green
ribbon, if she had a chance. She shivered at the possibilities which it
might involve. Suppose she were to open the second little green door
and be precipitated head first into a future far from the one which had
merged into the past, and be more at a loss than now. She might find
the conditions of life even more impossible than in her
great-great-great-grandfather's log cabin with hostile Indians about. It
might, as her great-great-grandmother Letitia had said, be much worse.
So she knitted soberly, and the other Letitia knitted, and neither spoke,
and there was not a sound except the crackling of the hearth fire and
bubbling of water in a large iron pot which swung from the crane, until
suddenly there was a frantic pounding at the door, and a sound as if
somebody were hurled against it.
Both Letitias started to their feet. Letitia turned pale, but her
great-great-grandmother Letitia looked as usual. She approached the
door, and spoke quite coolly. "Who may be without?" said she.
She had taken a musket as she crossed the room, and stood with it
levelled. Letitia also took a musket and levelled it, but it shook and it

seemed as if her great-great-grandmother was in considerable danger.
There came another pound on the door, and a boy's voice cried out
desperately. "It's me, let me in."
"Who is me?" inquired Great-great-grandmother Letitia, but she
lowered her musket, and Letitia did the same, for it was quite evident
that this was no Indian and no catamount.
"It is Josephus Peabody," answered the boy's voice, and Letitia gasped,
for she remembered seeing that very name on the genealogical tree
which hung in her great-aunt Peggy's front entry, although she could
not quite remember where it came in, whether it was on a main branch
or a twig.
"Are the Injuns after you?" inquired Great-great-grandmother Letitia.
"I don't know, but I heard branches crackling in the wood," replied the
terrified boy-voice, "and I saw your light through the shutters."
"You rake the ashes over the fire, while I let him in," ordered the
great-great-grandmother Letitia, peremptorily, and Letitia obeyed.
She raked the ashes carefully over the fire, she hung blankets over the
shutters, so there might be no tell-tale gleam, and the other Letitia drew
bolts and bars, then slammed the door to again, and the bolts and bars
shot back into place.
When Letitia turned around she saw a little boy of about her own age
who looked strangely familiar to her. He was clad in homespun of a
bright copperas color, and his hair was red, cut in a perfectly round rim
over his forehead. He had big blue eyes, which were bulging with terror.
He drew a sigh of relief as he looked at the two girls.
"If," said he, "I had only had a musket I would not have run, but Mr.
Holbrook and Caleb and Benjamin went hunting this morning, and they
carried all the muskets, and I had nothing except this knife."

With that the boy brandished a wicked-looking knife.
"You might have done something with that," remarked
Great-great-grandmother Letitia, and her voice was somewhat scornful.
"Yes, something," agreed the boy. "It is a good knife. My father killed
a big Injun and took it only last week. It is a scalping knife."
"Do you mean to say," asked the great-great-grandmother Letitia, "that
you don't know enough to use that knife, great boy that you are?"
The boy straightened himself. He saw the other Letitia and his blue
eyes were full of admiration and bravery. "Of course I know how," said