dropped the jacket and trotted briskly in, his lantern bobbing
agitatedly. He never delayed a moment when his wife called; important
and tyrannical as the little man was abroad, he had his own tyrant at
home.
Ann did not wait for him to return; she snatched up the blue jacket
and fled home, leaping like a little deer over the hoary fields. She
hung up the precious old jacket behind the shed-door again, and no
one ever knew the whole story of its entrance in the inventory. If
she had been questioned, she would have told the truth boldly,
though. But Samuel Wales' Inventory had for its last item that blue
jacket, spelled after Silas White's own individual method, as was
many another word in the long list. Silas White consulted his own
taste with respect to capital letters too.
After a few weeks, Grandma said she must have Ann again; and back she
went. Grandma was very feeble lately, and everybody humored her. Mrs.
Polly was sorry to have the little girl leave her. She said it was
wonderful how much she had improved. But she would not have admitted
that the improvement was owing to the different influence she had
been under; she said Ann had outgrown her mischievous ways.
Grandma did not live very long after this however. Mrs. Polly had her
bound girl at her own disposal in a year's time. Poor Ann was
sorrowful enough for a long while after Grandma's death. She wore the
beloved gold beads round her neck, and a sad ache in her heart. The
dear old woman had taken the beads off her neck with her own hands
and given them to Ann before she died, that there might be no mistake
about it.
Mrs. Polly said she was glad Ann had them. "You might jist as well
have 'em as Dorcas's girl," said she; "she set enough sight more by
you."
Ann could not help growing cheerful again, after a while. Affairs in
Mrs. Polly's house were much brighter for her, in some ways, than
they had ever been before.
Either the hot iron of affliction had smoothed some of the puckers
out of her mistress' disposition, or she was growing, naturally, less
sharp and dictatorial. Anyway, she was becoming as gentle and loving
with Ann as it was in her nature to be, and Ann, following her
impulsive temper, returned all the affection with vigor, and never
bestowed a thought on past unpleasantness.
For the next two years, Ann's position in the family grew to be more
and more that of a daughter. If it had not been for the indentures
lying serenely in that tall wooden desk, she would almost have
forgotten, herself, that she was a bound girl.
One spring afternoon, when Ann was about sixteen years old, her
mistress called her solemnly into the fore-room. "Ann," said she,
"come here, I want to speak to you."
Nabby stared wonderingly; and Ann, as she obeyed, felt awed. There
was something unusual in her mistress's tone.
Standing there in the fore-room, in the august company of the best
bed, with its high posts and flowered-chintz curtains, the best chest
of drawers, and the best chairs, Ann listened to what Mrs. Polly had
to tell her. It was a plan which almost took her breath away; for it
was this: Mrs. Polly proposed to adopt her, and change her name to
Wales. She would be no longer Ann Ginnins, and a bound girl; but Ann
Wales, and a daughter in her mother's home.
Ann dropped into one of the best chairs, and sat there, her little
dark face very pale. "Should I have the--_papers?_" she gasped at
length.
"Your papers? Yes, child, you can have them."
"I don't want them!" cried Ann, "never. I want them to stay just
where they are, till my time is out. If I am adopted, I don't want
the papers!"
Mrs. Polly stared. She had never known how Ann had taken the
indentures with her on her run-away trip years ago; but now Ann told
her the whole story. In her gratitude to her mistress, and her
contrition, she had to.
It was so long ago in Ann's childhood, it did not seem so very
dreadful to Mrs. Polly, probably. But Ann insisted on the indentures
remaining in the desk, even after the papers of adoption were made
out, and she had become "Ann Wales." It seemed to go a little way
toward satisfying her conscience. This adoption meant a good deal to
Ann; for besides a legal home, and a mother, it secured to her a
right in a comfortable property in the future. Mrs. Polly Wales was
considered very well off. She was a smart business-woman, and knew
how to take care of her property too. She still hired Phineas Adams
to carry on the blacksmith's business, and kept her farm-work running
just as her husband had. Neither she nor Ann were afraid of work, and
Ann Wales used to milk the cows, and escort them to and from pasture,
as faithfully as Ann Ginnins.
It was along in spring time when Ann was adopted, and Mrs. Polly
fulfilled her part of the contract in the indentures by getting the
Sunday suit therein spoken of.
They often rode on horseback to meeting, but they usually walked on
the fine Sundays in spring. Ann had probably never been so happy in
her life as she was walking by Mrs. Polly's side to meeting that
first Sunday after her adoption. Most of the way was through the
woods; the tender light green boughs met over their heads; the
violets and anemones were springing beside their path. There were
green buds and white blossoms all around; the sky showed blue between
the waving branches, and the birds were singing.
Ann in her pretty petticoat of rose-colored stuff, stepping daintily
over the young grass and the flowers, looked and felt like a part of
it all. Her dark cheeks had a beautiful red glow on them; her black
eyes shone. She was as straight and graceful and stately as an Indian.
"She's as handsome as a picture," thought Mrs. Polly in her secret
heart. A good many people said that Ann resembled Mrs. Polly in her
youth, and that may have added force to her admiration.
Her new gown was very fine for those days; but fine as she was, and
adopted daughter though she was, Ann did not omit her thrifty ways
for once. This identical morning Mrs. Polly and she carried their
best shoes under their arms, and wore their old ones, till within a
short distance from the meeting-house. Then the old shoes were tucked
away under a stone wall for safety, and the best ones put on. Stone
walls, very likely, sheltered a good many well-worn little shoes, of
a Puritan Sabbath, that their prudent owners might appear in the
House of God trimly shod. Ah! these beautiful, new peaked-toed,
high-heeled shoes of Ann's--what would she have said to walking in
them _all_ the way to meeting!
If that Sunday was an eventful one to Ann Wales, so was the week
following. The next Tuesday, right after dinner, she was up in a
little unfinished chamber over the kitchen, where they did such work
when the weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she heard
voices down below. They had a strange inflection, which gave her
warning at once. She dropped her work and listened: "What _is_ the
matter?" thought she.
Then there was a heavy tramp on the stairs, and Captain Abraham
French stood in the door, his stern weather-beaten face white and
set. Mrs. Polly followed him, looking very pale and excited.
"When did you see anything of our Hannah?" asked Captain French,
controlling as best he could the tremor in his resolute voice.
Ann rose, gathering up her big blue apron, cards, wool and all. "Oh,"
she cried, "not since last Sabbath, at meeting! What is it?"
"She's lost," answered Captain French. "She started to go up to her
Aunt Sarah's Monday forenoon; and Enos has just been down, and they
haven't seen anything of her." Poor Captain French gave a deep groan.
Then they all went down into the kitchen together, talking and
lamenting. And then, Captain French was galloping away on his gray
horse to call assistance, and Ann was flying away over the fields,
blue apron, cards, wool and all.
"O, Ann!" Mrs. Polly cried after, "where are you going?"
"I'm going--to find--_Hannah!_" Ann shouted back, in a shrill,
desperate voice, and kept on.
She had no definite notion as to where she was going; she had only
one thought--Hannah French, her darling, tender little Hannah French,
her friend whom she loved better than a sister, was lost.
A good three miles from the Wales home was a large tract of rough
land, half swamp, known as "Bear Swamp." There was an opinion, more
or less correct, that bears might be found there. Some had been shot
in that vicinity. Why Ann turned her footsteps in that direction, she
could not have told herself. Possibly the vague impression of
conversations she and Hannah had had, lingering in her mind, had
something to do with it. Many a time the two little girls had
remarked to each other with a shudder, "How awful it would be to get
lost in Bear Swamp."
Anyway, Ann went straight there, through pasture and woodland, over
ditches and stone walls. She knew every step of the way for a long
distance. When she gradually got into the unfamiliar wilderness of
the swamp, a thought struck her--suppose she got lost too! It would
be easy enough--the unbroken forest stretched for miles in some
directions. She would not find a living thing but Indians; and,
maybe, wild beasts, the whole distance.
If she should get lost she would not find Hannah, and the people
would have to hunt for her too. But Ann had quick wits for an
emergency. She had actually carried those cards, with a big wad of
wool between them all the time, in her gathered-up apron. Now she
began picking off little bits of wool and marking her way with them,
sticking them on the trees and bushes. Every few feet a fluffy scrap
of wool showed the road Ann had gone.
But poor Ann went on, farther and farther--and no sign of Hannah. She
kept calling her, from time to time, hallooing at the top of her
shrill sweet voice: "Hannah! Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch."
But never a response got the dauntless little girl, slipping almost
up to her knees, sometimes, in black swamp-mud; and sometimes
stumbling painfully over tree-stumps, and through tangled undergrowth.
"I'll go till my wool gives out," said Ann Wales; then she used it
more sparingly.
But it was almost gone before she thought she heard in the distance a
faint little cry in response to her call: "Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"
She called again and listened. Yes; she certainly did hear a little
cry off toward the west. Calling from time to time, she went as
nearly as she could in that direction. The pitiful answering cry grew
louder and nearer; finally Ann could distinguish Hannah's voice.
Wild with joy, she came, at last, upon her sitting on a fallen
hemlock-tree, her pretty face pale, and her sweet blue eyes strained
with terror.
"O, Hannah!" "O, Ann!"
"How did you ever get here, Hannah?"
"I--started for aunt Sarah's--that morning," explained Hannah,
between sobs. "And--I got frightened, in the woods, about a mile from
father's. I saw something ahead, I thought was a bear. A great black
thing! Then I ran--and, somehow, the first thing I knew, I was lost.
I walked and walked, and it seems to me I kept coming right back to
the same place. Finally I sat down here, and staid; I thought it was
all the way for me to be found."
"O, Hannah, what did you do last night?"
"I staid somewhere, under some pine trees," replied Hannah, with a
shudder, "and I kept hearing things--O Ann!"
Ann hugged her sympathizingly. "I guess I wouldn't have slept much if
I had known," said she. "O Hannah, you haven't had anything to eat!
ain't you starved?"
Hannah laughed faintly. "I ate up two whole pumpkin pies I was
carrying to aunt Sarah," said she.
"O how lucky it was you had them!"
"Yes; mother called me back to get them, after I started. They were
some new ones, made with cream, and she thought aunt Sarah would like
them."
Pretty soon they started. It was hard work; for the way was very
rough, and poor Hannah weak. But Ann had a good deal of strength in
her lithe young frame, and she half carried Hannah over the worst
places. Still both of the girls were pretty well spent when they came
to the last of the bits of wool on the border of Bear Swamp. However,
they kept on a little farther; then they had to stop and rest. "I
know where I am now," said Hannah, with a sigh of delight; "but I
don't think I can walk another step." She was, in fact, almost
exhausted.
Ann looked at her thoughtfully. She hardly knew what to do. She could
not carry Hannah herself--indeed, her own strength began to fail; and
she did not want to leave her to go for assistance.
All of a sudden, she jumped up. "You stay just where you are a few
minutes, Hannah," said she. "I'm going somewhere. I'll be back soon."
Ann was laughing.
Hannah looked up at her pitifully: "O Ann, don't go!"
"I'm coming right back, and it is the only way. You must get home.
Only think how your father and mother are worrying!"
Hannah said no more after that mention of her parents, and Ann
started.
She was not gone long. When she came in sight she was laughing, and
Hannah, weak as she was, laughed, too. Ann had torn her blue apron
into strips, and tied it together for a rope, and by it she was
leading a red cow.
Hannah knew the cow, and knew at once what the plan was.
"O Ann! you mean for me to ride Betty!"
"Of course I do. I just happened to think our cows were in the
pasture, down below here. And we've ridden Betty, lots of times, when
we were children, and she's just as gentle now. Whoa, Betty, good
cow."
It was very hard work to get Hannah on to the broad back of her novel
steed, but it was finally accomplished. Betty had been a perfect pet
from a calf, and was exceedingly gentle. She started off soberly
across the fields, with Hannah sitting on her back, and Ann leading
her by her blue rope.
It was a funny cavalcade for Captain Abraham French and a score of
anxious men to meet, when they were nearly in sight of home; but they
were too overjoyed to see much fun in it.
Hannah rode the rest of the way with her father on his gray horse;
and Ann walked joyfully by her side, leading the cow.
Captain French and his friends had, in fact, just started to search
Bear Swamp, well armed with lanterns, for night was coming on.
It was dark when they got home. Mrs. French was not much more
delighted to see her beloved daughter Hannah safe again, than Mrs.
Polly was to see Ann.
She listened admiringly to the story Ann told.
"Nobody but you would have thought of the wool or of the cow," said
she.
"I do declare," cried Ann, at the mention of the wool, "I have lost
the cards!"
"Never mind the cards!" said Mrs. Polly.
IV
The "Horse House" Deed
Know all Men By These Presents, that I Seth Towner of Braintree, in
the County of Suffolk & Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New
England, Gent. In Consideration that I may promote & encourage the
worship of God, I have given liberty to Ephriam, and Atherton Wales,
& Th'o:s Penniman of Stoughton who attend Publick worship with us to
erect a Stable or Horse House, on my Land near the Meeting House, in
the South Precinct in Braintree afores:d, to serve their Horses,
while attending the service of God--and to the intent that the s:d
Ephriam, Atherton & Thomas, their Heirs or assignes shall and may
hereafter So long as they or any of them incline or Desire to keep up
& maintain a Horse House for the afores:d use and Purpose; have s:d
Land whereon s:d House Stands without mollestation: I the said Seth
Towner for my Selfe, my Heirs, exec. and admin.: Do hereby Covenant
promise bind & oblige my selfe & them to warrant & Defend the
afores:d Privilege of Land. To the s:d Ephriam Wales, Atherton Wales,
& Tho:s Penniman their Heirs or assignes So long as they or any of
them keep a Horse House their, for the afores:d use: they keeping s:d
House in Such repair at all times, as that I the s:d Seth Towner, my
Heirs or assignes, may not receive Damage by any Creature Coming
through s:d House into my Land adjoining. In Witness Whereof, I the
s:d Seth Towner have hereunto set my Hand & Seal the first Day of
November One Thous. and Seven Hundred Sixty & four: in the fifth year
of his Majesty's Reign George the third King etc.
Signed Sealed and Del:d
presence of Seth Towner, Daniel Linfield, Simeon Thayer."
Ann's two uncles by adoption, and Thomas Penniman of Stoughton, were
well pleased to get this permission to erect a stable, or
Horse-House, as they put it then, to shelter their horses during
divine worship. The want of one had long been a sore inconvenience to
them. The few stables already erected around the meeting-house, could
not accommodate half of the horses congregated there on a Puritan
Sabbath, and every barn, for a quarter of a mile about, was put into
requisition on severe days. After the women had dismounted from their
pillions at the meeting-house door, the men-folks patiently rode the
horses to some place of shelter, and then trudged back through the
snow-drifts, wrestling with the icy wind.
So this new "Horse-House" was a great benefit to the Waleses, and to
the Pennimans, who lived three miles from them over the Stoughton
line. They were all constant meeting-folks. Hard indeed was the storm
which could keep a Wales or a Penniman away from meeting.
Mrs. Polly Wales' horses were accommodated in this new stable also.
In the winter time, there were two of them; one which she and Ann
rode, Ann using the pillion, and one for Nabby Porter. Phineas Adams
always walked. Often the sturdy young blacksmith was at the
meeting-house, before the women, and waiting to take their horses.
One Sunday, the winter after the Horse-House was built, Mrs. Polly,
Ann, Phineas, and Nabby went to meeting as usual. It was a very cold,
bleak day; the wind blew in through the slight wooden walls of the
old meeting-house, and the snow lay in little heaps here and there.
There was no stove in the building, as every one knows. Some of the
women had hot bricks and little foot-stoves, and that was all. Ann
did not care for either. She sat up straight in the comfortless,
high-backed pew. Her cheeks were as red as her crimson cloak, her
black eyes shone like stars. She let Mrs. Polly and Nabby have the
hot stones, but her own agile little feet were as warm as toast.
Little Hannah French, over across the meeting-house, looked chilled
and blue, but somehow Ann never seemed to be affected much by the
cold.
The Wales pew was close to a window on the south side; the side where
the new stable was. Indeed Ann could see it, if she looked out. She
sat next the window because the other women minded the draught more.
Right across the aisle from Mrs. Polly's pew was Thomas Penniman's.
He was there with his wife, and six stalwart sons. The two youngest,
Levi and John, were crowded out of the pew proper, and sat in the one
directly back.
John sat at the end. He was a tall, handsome young fellow, two or
three years older than Ann. He was well spoken of amongst his
acquaintances for two reasons. First, on account of his own brave,
steady character; and second, on account of his owning one of the
finest horses anywhere about. A good horse was, if anything, a more
important piece of property then than now. This one was a beautiful
bay. They called him "Red Robin."
To-day, Red Robin was carefully blanketed and fastened in the new
stable. John thought when he tied him there how thankful he was he
had such a good shelter this bitter day. He felt grateful to
Lieutenant Seth Turner, who owned all the land hereabouts and had
given the liberty to build it.
The people all sat quietly listening to the long sermon. Two hours
long it was. When the minister perched up in his beetling pulpit with
the sounding-board over his head, was about half through his
discourse, Ann Wales happened to glance out of the window at her
side. She rarely did such a thing in meeting-time; indeed she had
been better instructed. How she happened to to-day, she could not
have told, but she did.
It was well she did. Just at that moment, a man in a gray cloak
sprang into the Horse-House, and began untying John Penniman's Red
Robin.
Ann gave one glance; then she never hesitated. There was no time to
send whispers along the pew; to tell Phineas Adams to give the alarm.
Out of the pew darted Ann, like a red robin herself, her read cloak
flying back, crowding nimbly past the others, across the aisle to
John Penniman.
"Somebody's stealing Red Robin, John," said she in a clear whisper.
They heard it for several pews around. Up sprang the pewful of
staunch Pennimans, father and sons, and made for the door in a great
rush after John, who was out before the whisper had much more than
left Ann's lips.
The alarm spread; other men went too. The minister paused, and the
women waited. Finally the men returned, all but a few who were
detailed to watch the horses through the remainder of the services,
and the meeting proceeded.
Phineas sent the whisper along the pew, that John had got out in time
to save Red Robin; but the robber had escaped. Somehow, he had taken
alarm before John got there. Red Robin was standing in the stable
untied; but the robber had disappeared.
After meeting the people all came and questioned Ann. "He was a very
tall man, in a gray cloak," said she. "He turned his face, or I saw
it, just for one second, when I looked. He had black eyes and a dark
curling beard."
It seemed very extraordinary. If it had not been for Red Robin's
being untied, they would almost have doubted if Ann had seen rightly.
The thief had disappeared so suddenly and utterly, it almost seemed
impossible that he could have been there at all.
There was much talk over it after meeting. "Are you _sure_ you saw
him, Ann?" Mrs. Polly asked.
"Yes; I am _sure_," Ann would reply. She began to feel rather
uncomfortable over it. She feared people would think she had been
napping and dreaming although Red Robin _was_ untied.
That night the family were all in bed at nine o'clock, as usual; but
Ann up in her snug feather-bed in her little western chamber, could
not sleep. She kept thinking about the horse-thief, and grew more and
more nervous. Finally she thought of some fine linen cloth she and
Mrs. Polly had left out in the snowy field south of the house to
bleach, and she worried about that. A web of linen cloth and a horse
were very dissimilar booty; but a thief was a thief. Suppose anything
should happen to the linen they had worked so hard over!
At last, she could not endure it any longer. Up she got, put on her
clothes hurriedly, crept softly down stairs and out doors. There was
a full moon and it was almost as light as day. The snow looked like a
vast sheet of silver stretching far away over the fields.
Ann was hastening along the path between two high snowbanks when all
of a sudden she stopped, and gave a choked kind of a scream. No one
with nerves could have helped it. Right in the path before her stood
the horse-thief, gray cloak and all.
Ann turned, after her scream and first wild stare, and ran. But the
man caught her before she had taken three steps. "Don't scream," he
said in a terrible, anxious whisper. "Don't make a noise, for God's
sake! They're after me! Can't you hide me?"
"No," said Ann, white and trembling all over but on her mettle, "I
won't. You are a sinful man, and you ought to be punished. I won't do
a thing to help you!"
The man's face bending over her was ghastly in the moonlight. He went
on pleading. "If you will hide me somewhere about your place, they
will not find me," said he, still in that sharp agonized whisper.
"They are after me--can't you hear them?"
Ann could, listening, hear distant voices on the night air.
"I was just going to hide in your barn," said the thief, "when I met
you. O let me in there, now! don't betray me!"
Great tears were rolling down his bearded cheeks. Ann began to waver.
"They might look in the barn," said she hesitatingly.
The man followed up his advantages. "Then hide me in the house," said
he. "I have a daughter at home, about your age. She's waiting for me,
and it's long she'll wait, and sad news she'll get at the end of the
waiting, if you don't help me. She hasn't any mother, she's a little
tender thing--it'll kill her!" He groaned as he said it.
The voices came nearer. Ann hesitated no longer. "Come," said she,
"quick!"
Then she fled into the house, the man following. Inside, she bolted
the door, and made her unwelcome guest take off his boots in the
kitchen, and follow her softly up stairs with them in his hand.
Ann's terror, leading him up, almost overwhelmed her. What if anybody
should wake! Nabby slept near the head of the stairs. Luckily, she
was a little deaf, and Ann counted on that.