"I remember now Aunt Peggy told Hannah about it," whispered Let.i.tia with sudden remembrance.

"I don't know how long ago it was, for I have done so much work making wooden nails, when all the nails I had ever seen were bought at a shop, and such things, that it seems an awful long time; but I was left alone just the way you were, and I found the key to that book that looked like a wooden box. It was in a little drawer of Grandmother's secretary."

"Did it have a green ribbon on it?" whispered Let.i.tia breathlessly.

"Yes, it did, honest, a green ribbon, and I went up in the garret and I unlocked that book, and first thing I knew I was in the woods around the house where I live now, and a wolf was chasing me, and Mr.

Cephas Holbrook shot him, and took me home."

Let.i.tia sighed. "Do you like it here?" she whispered.

"I think it is awful, don't you?"

"Yes, I do, but I don't dare say so."

"I do," said Josephus Peabody. "I ain't afraid of anything that ain't bigger and stronger than I am, honest, and I have killed one wolf my own self. That is true, but I didn't kill the others. I told that because that other girl was turning up her nose so at me. But I don't like to live here at all. I used to complain when I was Joe instead of Josephus, and had to learn lessons, and do errands. But this is worse than anything I ever dreamed about when I had the nightmare."

"That is the way I feel," said Let.i.tia soberly. "I used to complain, but I wouldn't now. I've been living back of complaints too long."

"So have I," said Josephus. Then he added, "Say, I'm awful glad I got scared, and ran here, and found you."

"So am I."

"There's something I want to tell you that's very queer," whispered Josephus. "There is a wooden book just like the one in Mr. Holbrook's house under the eaves in the lean-to, and I know where the key is. It is in the chest in the kitchen, in the till hidden under a lot of linen night-caps."

"Has it a green ribbon on it?" whispered Let.i.tia fearfully.

"Yes, it has. Say, don't you ever think you'd like to run away from here?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid I might get into something worse."

"That's the way I feel. Otherwise we might both watch our chance and go through that wooden book in our lean-to, but we might find ourselves in Grandmother Peabody's garret where I came from, and we might find ourselves in a place full of worse wild animals than there are here, and things worse than Injuns. And we might have to learn more than we've learned here, and work harder, and I don't feel as if I could stand that."

"I don't either." Then Let.i.tia whispered very violently, "There is a little green door here, and I know where the key is, with a green ribbon, but I am afraid."

"That's very funny--just like me," said Josephus.

"Well, I may make up my mind to take the chance anyhow, and if I do you had better. Say, if you hear I've gone, you just go through your little green door, will you?"

"Maybe," whispered Let.i.tia doubtfully, and then her Great-great-grandmother Let.i.tia came back. "There isn't a sign of an Injun here," said she, "and I am 'most froze. I'm going to start the fire, and you boy, you had better come too. You can sleep on the floor by the fire to-night and go home in the morning. Father and mother are coming. I heard their horses. Mother's is a little lame, and favors one foot, and I know. They're right here, and they'll be cold, and I've got to start up the fire."

"I'll help," cried Josephus.

"You'd better," said the elder Let.i.tia; "if I had a brother as big as you, he'd have to work instead of hunting rabbits."

Josephus flew about the kitchen dragging heavy logs, and poking the fire, and Let.i.tia quite admired him, but her great-great-grandmother simply scolded. "You are a most unhandy boy," said she. "You can have had little training in making hearth fires."

However, the flames leaped high into the great chimney mouth, when Captain John Hopkins and his wife entered.

"How pleasant it is, and how thankful we ought to be to have a good warm room to enter," said Great-great-great-grandmother Let.i.tia Hopkins, although she looked very grave. The sick neighbor was very sick unto death, it was feared, and she was a good woman and a good neighbor.

Josephus Peabody stayed all night and slept wrapped up in a homespun blanket beside the fire, but the next morning it was hardly daylight before Goodman Cephas Holbrook came for him. Cephas Holbrook was a very stern man, and he believed in the rod. Before Josephus left he had just one chance and he improved it. It was while Mr. Holbrook was partaking of a gla.s.s of something warm and spicy which Great-great-great-grandmother Let.i.tia Hopkins mixed for him. It was a cordial of her own compounding and a good thing for the stomach on a bitter morning, and this morning was very bitter.

Josephus whispered to Let.i.tia: "He will give me an awful licking when we get home, and I am not afraid, honest. But if I can get hold of that key, I mean to go into that book this very night."

Let.i.tia looked frightened.

"You had better--" began Josephus, and he nodded meaningly.

Let.i.tia knew what he meant, but she had no chance to reply, for Mr.

Holbrook had finished his cordial and had Josephus by the hand, and was jerking him rather forcibly out of the door.

"A froward child, I fear," remarked Captain John Hopkins when they had gone.

"Yes," a.s.sented his wife.

"He is afraid of Injuns when there are none, too," said Great-great-grandmother Let.i.tia.

"That is an evil thing, too," said her father. "It is distrusting the Almighty to fear where is nothing to fear. A froward child, and I trust that Goodman Holbrook will not spare the rod."

Let.i.tia was very sure that he would not, and she pitied poor Josephus Peabody with all her heart. She also pitied herself more than usual that day, for the cold was stinging, and she was put to hard tasks, and she felt forlorn at the thought that her little brother in the hardships of the Past might that very night strive to make his escape. Gradually her own resolve grew. She was horribly afraid, but she was also horribly homesick, and homesickness will urge to desperate deeds.

That night, also, Captain John Hopkins and his wife went to visit the sick neighbor, and, after the younger sisters were in bed, Let.i.tia was left alone with her great-great-grandmother, who was sleepy.

Let.i.tia did not talk; she knitted, with a shrewd eye upon the elder Let.i.tia, who presently fell fast asleep. Then Let.i.tia rose softly, and laid down her knitting work. It might be her chance for n.o.body knew how long, and Josephus might even now be entering his book. She pulled off her shoes, tiptoed in her thick yarn stockings up to the loft, got her own clothes out of the chest, and put them on. The little great-great-aunts did not stir. Let.i.tia blew a kiss to them.

Then she tiptoed down, got the key out of the secret drawer, blew another farewell kiss to her sleeping great-great-grandmother and was out of the house.

It was broad moonlight outside. She ran around to the north side of the house, and there was the little green door hidden under the low branches of the spruce tree. Let.i.tia gave a sob of fear and thankfulness. She fitted the key in the lock, turned it, opened the door, and there she was back in her great-aunt's cheese-room.

She shut the door hard, locked it, and carried the key back to its place in the satin-wood box. Then she looked out of the window, and there was her great-aunt Peggy, and the old maid-servant just coming home from meeting.

Let.i.tia confessed what she had done, and her aunt listened gravely.

Let.i.tia did not say anything about Josephus Peabody.

She was not sure that he had made his escape, and if he had his grandmother might punish him, and she considered that he had probably suffered enough at the hands of Goodman Cephas Holbrook.

Let.i.tia's aunt listened gravely. "You were disobedient," said she when Let.i.tia had finished, "but I think your disobediance has brought its own punishment, and I hope now that you will be more contented."

"Oh, Aunt Peggy," sobbed Let.i.tia, "everything I've got is so beautiful, and I love to study and crochet and go to church."

"Well, it was a hard lesson to learn, and I hoped to spare you from it, but perhaps it was for the best," said her great-aunt Peggy.

"I was there a whole winter," said Let.i.tia, "but when I got back you were just coming home from church."

"It doesn't take as long to visit the past as it did to live in it,"

replied her aunt. Then she sent Let.i.tia to her room for the satin-wood box, and, when she had brought it, took out of it a little parcel, neatly folded in white paper, tied with a green ribbon. "Open it," said she.

Let.i.tia untied the green ribbon and unfolded the paper, and there was the little silver snuff-box which had been the treasure of the great-great-grandmother, Let.i.tia Hopkins. She raised the lid, and there was also the little gla.s.s bottle.

They had a very nice dinner that day, and afterward had settled down for a quiet afternoon, Let.i.tia feeling very happy, when there was a jingle of sleigh bells, and Aunt Peggy cried out. "Why, I declare,"

said she, "if there isn't Mrs. Joe Peabody with her little grandson driving over this cold day. She is a very smart old lady."