"If you think it would get you into trouble," said my sister, aged
eight, very stiffly, "why, of course, we won't say anything."
Mary was troubled. Finally she drew a deep breath and flung out her
hands.
"Of course, it would be wrong not to tell," she said. "You _must_ tell
her."
But by good fortune we met my father first and told him.
"And papa," said Ellen, she had been swung to his shoulder and there
rode like a princess upon a genii, "what do you think, way up the trunk
there was an old shoe sticking out of a knothole, and we all thought
that somebody must have climbed up inside and put it there. But brother
couldn't climb up because he's too little, and Mary wouldn't try, and we
thought maybe Sunday you'd go with us and see if you could climb up."
I don't know why my father happened to take the line that he did; he may
have seen something in Mary's face that we children would not be likely
to see. He laughed first, and told us a story.
It was about some children that he had once known, who had seen a boot
sticking out of a tree, just as we had done, and how a frightful old
witch had come along, and told them that if they went away for a year
and a day and didn't say a word about the boot to any one, and then went
back, they would by that time have grown sufficiently to climb up and
get the boot, and that they would find it full of gold pieces. But if,
during the year and the day, they so much as mentioned the boot to any
one but their father, they would find it full of the most dreadful black
and yellow spiders which would chase them all the way to Jericho, and
bite their fat calves every few steps.
"This," said he, "may be that kind of a boot. Now promise not to talk
about it for a year and a day--not even to me--and at the end of that
time, why we'll all go and see what's in it. No," he said, "you mustn't
go to look at it every now and then--that would spoil the charm. Let me
see. This is the twenty-eighth--a year and a day--hum." And he made his
calculations. Then he said: "By the way, Mary, don't you and the
children ever get hungry between meals? If you were to take bread and
meat, and make up sandwiches to take on your excursions, they'd never be
missed. I'd see to it," he said, "that they weren't missed. Growing
children, you know." And he strode on, Ellen riding on his shoulder like
a princess on her genii.