"Your bucket! What have I got to do with your bucket?"
"I left it out in--your berry pasture."
"Out in my berry pasture! So you have been stealing my berries, hey?
What about your bucket?"
Mirandy's little hands clutched and opened at her sides, her face was
quite pale, but she looked straight up at Cap'n Moseby. "You took it,"
said she.
Cap'n Moseby looked straight back at her, frowning terribly; then, to
her great astonishment, his mouth twitched as if he were going to laugh.
"You think I took your bucket, and you have been waiting here all this
time to get it back, hey?" said he.
"Yes, sir."
"Didn't you feel afraid that I'd set the dog on you, or shoot you out of
the window with my gun?"
"No, sir," said Mirandy.
"Well," said Cap'n Moseby. He paused a minute, his mouth twitched
again. "You have got to come into the house and settle with me if you
want your bucket," he continued, and his voice was still very grim.
Mirandy stepped up on the threshold, and the black dog growled faintly.
"Be still, Lafayette!" said Cap'n Moseby. "I'm going to settle with her.
You lay down."
She followed Cap'n Moseby into his kitchen, and he pushed a little stool
towards her. "Sit down," said he.
And Mirandy sat down. Directly opposite her, on a corner of the settle,
was her berry bucket, and near it stood the gun, propped against the
wall. She eyed it. There was a vague fear in her mind that settlement
was in some way connected with that gun; but she never flinched. She was
resolved to have that bucket.
Cap'n Moseby went to the dresser and got out a large china bowl with
green sprigs on it, and a pewter spoon. He filled the bowl with berries
from Mirandy's bucket, and then poured on some milk out of a blue
pitcher. Mirandy watched him.
He carried the bowl over to her, and set it in her lap. "Eat 'em all up,
now, every one," he commanded.
Mirandy looked up at him pitifully. Her courage almost failed. She
thought of the boys and the stolen fruit in the _Pilgrim's Progress_,
and she almost felt premonitory cramps.
"Eat 'em," ordered Cap'n Moseby.
And Mirandy ate them, thrusting the pewter spoon, laden with those
stolen berries, desperately into her mouth. Never berries tasted like
those to her. There was no sweetness in them. But she kept thinking how
her mother could give her boneset tea if they made her sick, and she was
determined to have the bucket back.
Cap'n Moseby watched her as she ate. He emptied the remaining berries
out of the bucket into a large bowl. Then he sat opposite, on the
settle. Lafayette lay at his feet.
Mirandy finished the berries, and sat with the empty bowl in her lap.
"Finished 'em?" asked Cap'n Moseby.
"Yes, sir."
"Now, Mirandy Thayer, I'm going to ask you a question." Cap'n Moseby's
eyes looked into hers, and she looked back into his. "If you hadn't been
a little gal, Mirandy Thayer, what would you have been?"
Mirandy hesitated.
"Hey?" said Cap'n Moseby.
"One of my brothers," said Mirandy, doubtfully.
[Illustration: "'EAT 'EM!' ORDERED CAP'N MOSEBY"]
"No, you wouldn't. I'll tell you what you would have been. You would
have been a soldier, and you would have gone right up to the redcoats'
guns. Well, you must tend to your knittin'-work and your spinnin'. Now
what did you steal my berries for, hey?"
"To earn my shoes," faltered Mirandy; she felt a little bewildered.
"Earn your shoes?"
"Yes, sir; I 'ain't got any to wear to meetin'."
"Have to go barefoot?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, they went barefoot at Valley Forge; that's nothing. You wait a
minute, Mirandy Thayer."
And Mirandy waited until Cap'n Moseby had limped into another room and
back again. He had a pair of little rough shoes dangling in his hand.
"Here," said he, "these belonged to my Ezra that died. He had some grit
in him; he'd have done some marchin' in 'em if he'd lived. They'll jest
about fit you. It's a pity you're a little gal. Well, you must tend to
your knittin'-work and your spinnin'. Now you'd better run home, an'
don't you ever come stealin' my berries again, or you'll run faster than
they did at Lexington."
And so it happened that Mirandy went home, about three o'clock of that
summer afternoon, carrying her new shoes in her berry bucket, and Cap'n
Moseby limped along at her side. Mirandy did not know that he went to
explain matters to her mother, so that she should not be dealt with too
severely, but she was surprised that she received so small a chiding.
"Don't you ever let me hear of your doing such a thing again," said her
mother; and that was all she said.
The next Sunday Mirandy went up the aisle clattering bravely in little
Ezra Moseby's shoes, and she could not help looking often at them during
the sermon.