"I came back and told the girl, and she smiled and nodded. I did not like her smile, I could not tell why. I started to go with her, but she turned on me pretty sharply, and said she had been in the house three months and didn"t need to be shown the way by a stranger. I didn"t want to put myself forward, but no sooner had she run up-stairs, and I heard her steps in the chamber above me, than something seemed to be pushing, pushing me toward those stairs, whether I would or no. I tried to hold back, and tell myself it was nonsense, and that I was nervous and foolish; it made no difference, I had to go up-stairs.
"I went softly, my shoes making no noise. My own little room was dark, for I had closed the blinds when the afternoon sun was pouring in hot and bright; but a slender line of light lay across the blackness like a long finger, and I knew the moon was shining in at the windows of the shed chamber. I did a thing I had never done before in my life; that silver finger came through the keyhole, and it drew me to it. I knelt down and looked through.
"The big room shone bare and white in the moonlight; the trunks looked like great animals crouching along the walls. Annie stood in the middle of the room, as if she were waiting or listening for something. Then she slipped off her shoes and went to one of the windows and opened it. I had fastened it, but the catch was old and she knew the trick of it, of course. In another moment something black appeared over the low sill; it was a man"s head. My heart seemed to stand still. She helped him, and he got in without making a sound. He must have climbed up the big elm-tree which grew close against the house. They stood whispering together for a few minutes, but I could not hear a word.
"The man was in stocking feet; he had an evil, coa.r.s.e face, yet he was good-looking, too, in a way. I thought the girl seemed frightened, and yet pleased, too; and he seemed to be praising her, I thought, and once he put his arms round her and kissed her. She went to the wardrobe and opened it, but he shook his head; then she opened the great cedar trunk, and he nodded, and measured it and got into it and sat down. It was so deep that he could sit quite comfortably with the cover down. Annie shut it and then opened it again.
"I had seen all I wanted to see. I slipped down-stairs as I heard her move toward the door; when she came down I was stirring my cocoa on the stove, with my back to her. She came round and showed me a bundle she had in her hand, and said she must be going now. I kept my face in the shadow as well as I could, for I was afraid I might not be able to look just as usual; but I spoke quietly, and asked her if she had found everything, and wished her good night as pleasantly as I knew how. All the while my head was in a whirl and my heart beat so loud I thought she must have heard it. There was a good deal of silver in the house, and I knew that Mr. Bowles had drawn some money from the bank only a day or two before, to pay a life-insurance premium.
"I never listened to anything as I did to the sound of her footsteps; even after they had died away, after she had turned the corner, a good way off, I stood still, listening, not stirring hand or foot.
But when I no longer heard any sound my strength seemed to come back with a leap, and I knew what I had to do. I told you my shoes made no noise. I slipped up-stairs, through my own room, and into the shed chamber. Girls, it lay so peaceful and bare in the white moonlight, that for a moment I thought I must have dreamed it all.
"It seemed half a mile to the farther end, where the great cedar trunk stood. As I went a board creaked under my feet, and I heard--or fancied I heard--a faint rustle inside the trunk. I began to hum a tune, and moved about among the trunks, raising and shutting the lids, as if I were looking for something. Now at last I was beside the dreadful chest, and in another instant I had turned the key. Then, girls, I flew! I knew the lock was a stout one and the wood heavy and hard; it would take the man some time to get it open from the inside, whatever tools he might have. I was down-stairs in one breath, praying that I might be able to control my voice so that it would not sound strange to the sick woman.
""Would you mind if I went out for a few minutes, Mrs. Bowles? The moonlight is so lovely I thought I would like to take a little walk, if there is nothing you want."
"She looked surprised, but said in her kind way, yes, certainly I might go, only I"d better not go far.
"I thanked her, and walked quietly out to the end of the garden walk; then I ran! Girls, I had no idea I could run so! Strength seemed given me, for I never felt my body. I was like a spirit flying or a wind blowing. The road melted away before me, and all the time I saw two things before my eyes as plain as I see you now,--the evil-faced man working away at the lock of the cedar chest, and the sweet lady sitting in the room below with her Bible on her knee. Yes, I thought of the children, too, but it seemed to me no one, not even the wickedest, could wish to hurt a child. So on I ran!
"I reached the first house, but I knew there was no man there, only two nervous old ladies. At the next house I should find two men, George Brett and his father.
"Yes, Lottie, my George, but I had never seen him then. He had only lately come back from college. The first I saw of him was two minutes later, when I ran almost into his arms as he came out of the house. I can see him now, in the moonlight, tall and strong, with his surprised eyes on me. I must have been a wild figure, I suppose.
I could hardly speak, but somehow I made him understand.
"He turned back to the door and shouted to his father, who came hurrying out; then he looked at me. "Can you run back?" he asked.
"I nodded. I had no breath for words but plenty for running, I thought.
""Come on, then!"
"Girls, it was twice as easy running with that strong figure beside me. I noticed in all my hurry and distress how easily he ran, and I felt my feet, that had grown heavy in the last few steps, light as air again. Once I sobbed for breath, and he took my hand as we ran, saying, "Courage, brave girl!" We ran on hand in hand, and I never failed again. We heard Mr. Brett"s feet running, not far behind; he was a strong, active man, but could not quite keep up with us.
"As we neared the house, "Quiet," I said; "Mrs. Bowles does not know.""
He nodded, and we slipped in at the back door. In an instant his shoes were off and he was up the back stairs like a cat, and I after him. As we entered the shed chamber the lid of the cedar trunk rose.
I saw the gleam of the evil black eyes and the shine of white, wolfish teeth. Without a sound George Brett sprang past me; without a sound the robber leaped to meet him. I saw them in the white light as they clinched and stood locked together; then a mist came before my eyes and I saw nothing more.
"I did not actually faint, I think; it cannot have been more than a few minutes before I came to myself. But when I looked again George was kneeling with his knee on the man"s breast, holding him down, and Father Brett was looking about the chamber and saying, in his dry way, "Now where in Tunkett is the clothes-line to tie this fellow?"
"And the girl? Annie? O girls, she was so young! She was just my own age and she had no mother. I went to see her the next day, and many days after that. We are fast friends now, and she is a good, steady girl; and no one knows--no one except our two selves and two others--that she was ever in the shed chamber."
_MAINE TO THE RESCUE_
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! It"s snowing!"
"Hurrah! hurrah! It"s snowing!"
Ma.s.sachusetts looked up from her algebra. She was the head of the school. She was rosy and placid as the apple she was generally eating when not in cla.s.s. Apples and algebra were the things she cared most about in school life.
"Whence come these varying cries?" she said, taking her feet off the fender and trying to be interested, though her thoughts went on with "a 1/6 b =" etc.
"Oh, Virginia is grumbling because it is snowing, and Maine is feeling happy over it, that"s all!" said Rhode Island, the smallest girl in Miss Wayland"s school.
"Poor Virginia! It is rather hard on you to have snow in March, when you have just got your box of spring clothes from home."
"It is atrocious!" said Virginia, a tall, graceful, languishing girl.
"How could they send me to such a place, where it is winter all the spring? Why, at home the violets are in blossom, the trees are coming out, the birds singing--"
"And at home," broke in Maine, who was a tall girl, too, but lithe and breezy as a young willow, with flyaway hair and dancing brown eyes, "at home all is winter--white, beautiful, glorious winter, with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the splendor of it! And here--here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call winter because they don"t know what else to call it."
"Come! come!" said Old New York, who was seventeen years old and had her own ideas of dignity. "Let us alone, you two outsiders! We are neither Eskimos nor Hindoos, it is true, but the Empire State would not change climates with either of you."
"No, indeed!" chimed in Young New York, who always followed her leader in everything, from opinions down to hair-ribbons.
"No, indeed!" repeated Virginia, with languid scorn. "Because you couldn"t get any one to change with you, my dear."
Young New York reddened. "You are so disagreeable, Virginia!" she said. "I am sure I am glad I don"t have to live with you all the year round--"
"Personal remarks!" said Ma.s.sachusetts, looking up calmly. "One cent, Young New York, for the missionary fund. Thank you! Let me give you each half an apple, and you will feel better."
She solemnly divided a large red apple, and gave the halves to the two scowling girls, who took them, laughing in spite of themselves, and went their separate ways.
"Why didn"t you let them have it out, Ma.s.sachusetts?" said Maine, laughing. "You never let any one have a good row."
"Slang!" said Ma.s.sachusetts, looking up again. "One cent for the missionary fund. You will clothe the heathen at this rate, Maine.
That is the fourth cent to-day."
""Row" isn"t slang!" protested Maine, feeling, however, for her pocket-book.
"Vulgar colloquial!" returned Ma.s.sachusetts, quietly. "And perhaps you would go away now, Maine, or else be quiet. Have you learned--"
"No, I haven"t!" said Maine. "I will do it very soon, dear Saint Apple. I must look at the snow a little more."
Maine went dancing off to her room, where she threw the window open and looked out with delight. The girl caught up a double handful and tossed it about, laughing for pure pleasure. Then she leaned out to feel the beating of the flakes on her face.
"Really quite a respectable little snowstorm!" she said, nodding approval at the whirling white drift. "Go on, and you will be worth while, my dear." She went singing to her algebra, which she could not have done if it had not been snowing.
The snow went on increasing from hour to hour. By noon the wind began to rise; before night it was blowing a furious gale. Furious blasts clutched at the windows, and rattled them like castanets. The wind howled and shrieked and moaned, till it seemed as if the air were filled with angry demons fighting to possess the square white house.
Many of the pupils of Miss Wayland"s school came to the tea-table with disturbed faces; but Ma.s.sachusetts was as calm as usual, and Maine was jubilant.
"Isn"t it a glorious storm?" she cried, exultingly. "I didn"t know there could be such a storm in this part of the country, Miss Wayland.