Part 5 (1/2)
”Is it true?” asked Eunice.
”No, it's made up, but I'm going to make believe that it's true. She slept in the corn chamber,--it was a bedroom then,--and she had that yellow painted bedstead of Hepzibah's.
”There was a hiding-place under the floor of the room. It was made to put things in when Indians came, or the English,--money and spoons, and things like that.
”One day when Mercy was spinning under the big elm, a man came running down the road. He was a young man, and very handsome, and he had on a sort of uniform.
”'Hide me!' he cried. 'They will kill me if they catch me. Hide me, quick!'
”'Who will kill you?' asked Mercy.
”Then the young man told her that he had accidentally shot a man who was out hunting with him, and that the man's brothers, who were very bad people, had sworn to have his blood.
”Then Mercy took his hand, and led him quickly up to her room, and lifted the cover of the hiding-place, and told him to get in. And he got in, but first he said, 'Fair maiden, if I come out alive, I shall have somewhat to say to thee.' And Mercy blushed.”
”What did he mean?” asked Eunice, innocently.
”Oh, just love-making and nonsense!” put in Reuben. ”Hurry up, Cynthia!
Come to the fighting. The candle's all but burned out.”
”There isn't going to be any fighting,” returned Cynthia. ”Well, Mercy pulled the bedside carpet over the cover, and she set that red candle-stand on one corner of it and a chair on the other corner, and went back to her spinning. She had hardly begun before there was a rustling in the bushes, and two men with guns in their hands came out.
”'Which way did he go?' they shouted.
”'Who?' she said, and she looked up so quietly that they never suspected her.
”'Has no one gone by?' they asked her.
”'No one,' she said; and you know this wasn't a lie, for the young man did not go by. He stopped!
”'There is the back door open,' she went on, 'and you are welcome to search, if you desire it. My father is away, but he will be here soon.'
She said this because she feared the men.
”So the men searched, but they found nothing, and Mercy's room looked so neat and peaceful that they did not like to disturb it, and just looked in at the door. And when they were gone, Mercy went up and raised the cover, and the youth said that he loved her, and that if the Lord willed, he--”
Pop! The second candle went suddenly out.
”It's a shame!” cried Reuben, dancing with vexation. ”It seems as if the blamed things knew when we most wanted them to last!”
”Oh, Reuben! don't say 'blamed.'”
”I forgot. Well, blame-worthy, then. There's no harm in that.”
”We shall never know if the young man married Mercy,” said little Eunice, lamentably.
”Oh, of course he did! That's the way stories always end.”
”Now, Reuben, hurry to bed, and when you are all ready, light your candle, and if you speak loud we shall hear every word.”