"She doesn't like the good porridge," the little great-great-aunts said to each other.

"Eat the porridge," commanded Captain John Hopkins sternly, when he had gotten over his surprise.

Let.i.tia ate the porridge, every grain of it. After breakfast the serious work of the day began. Let.i.tia had never known anything like it. She felt like a baby who had just come into a new world. She was ignorant of everything that these strange relatives knew. It made no difference that she knew some things which they did not, some advanced things. She could, for instance, crochet, if she could not knit. She could repeat the multiplication-table, if she did not know the doctrine of predestination; she had also all the States of the Union by heart. But advanced knowledge is not of as much value in the past as past knowledge in the future. She could not crochet, because there was no crochet needles; there were no States of the Union; and it seemed doubtful if there was a multiplication-table, there was so little to multiply.

So Let.i.tia had set herself to acquiring the wisdom of her ancestors.

She learned to card, and hetchel, and spin and weave. She learned to dye cloth, and make coa.r.s.e garments, even for her great-great-great-grandfather, Captain John Hopkins. She knitted yarn stockings, she scoured bra.s.s and pewter, and, more than all, she learned the entire catechism. Let.i.tia had never really known what work was. From long before dawn until long after dark, she toiled. She was not allowed to spend one idle moment. She had no chance to steal out and search for the little green door, even had she not been so afraid of wild beasts and Indians.

She never went out of the 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. Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia went always in the queer little coa.r.s.e 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 Let.i.tia fidgetted, or fell asleep, the t.i.thing-men rapped her. Let.i.tia 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. Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia 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 gla.s.s 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 Let.i.tia's great-great-grandmother.

Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia 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.

Let.i.tia 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.

Let.i.tia 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 there," ventured Let.i.tia.

"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. Let.i.tia knitted and her great-great-grandmother knitted. Let.i.tia 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.

Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia had said, be much worse. So she knitted soberly, and the other Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tias started to their feet. Let.i.tia turned pale, but her great-great-grandmother Let.i.tia 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. Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia, but she lowered her musket, and Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia.

"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 Let.i.tia, peremptorily, and Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia drew bolts and bars, then slammed the door to again, and the bolts and bars shot back into place.

When Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia, 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 Let.i.tia, "that you don't know enough to use that knife, great boy that you are?"

The boy straightened himself. He saw the other Let.i.tia 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?"

Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia 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 Let.i.tia 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 bravely, "and I will guard the path."

"You!" returned Great-great-grandmother Let.i.tia scornfully. "You are naught but a child."

"I can handle a musket as well as a man," said Josephus Peabody with such a straightening of his small back that it seemed positively alarming, and another glance at Let.i.tia, who returned it. She thought him a very pretty boy, and quite brave, offering to guard the path all alone, although he was so young, not much older than she was.

Great-great-grandmother Let.i.tia took up a musket decidedly. "Very well," said she, "if you can handle a musket like a man, here be the chance. Take this musket, and I will take one, and Let.i.tia will take one, and we will leave the door ajar, so we can dash in if hard-pressed, and we will keep watch lest father and mother be attacked unawares at the threshold."

Let.i.tia was horribly afraid, but she had learned in the Spartan household of her ancestors, to be more afraid of fear than of anything else, so she pulled a blanket over her head and shouldered a musket, and, after the elder Let.i.tia had unbarred and unbolted the door, they all stepped out into the night, armed and ready to guard the house.