The Green Door | Page 7

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 he. "Haven't I killed ten wolves and aren't their heads nailed to the outside of the meeting-house?"
Letitia was quite sure that the boy lied, but she knew that he lied to please her, and she liked him for it.
Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed. "You are the greatest braggart in the Precinct," said she. "Nary a wolf have you killed, and you ran because you heard a wild cat or a bear. Where are the Injuns, pray?"
"I know there were Injuns after me," said the boy earnestly, "but perhaps I frightened them away. I brandished my knife as I ran."
Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed again, but she looked anxious. "I hope," said she, "that father and mother will not be molested on their way home."
"Give me a musket," declared the boy