第52章 AUNT POLLY SHEDD'S BRIGADE.(2)

"A cold shiver ran over me and I caught so hard at little Sally's hand that the child cried out with pain, and Aunt Polly said anxiously:

" 'Hurry up, dears! 'Tain't much more'n a mile out to Gubtil's, and you'll have a good nice chance to rest after we get there.'

"Just then the martial music of a fife and drum announced the landing of the enemy's troops, and I tell you it quickened the lagging footsteps of even the youngest child into a run, and we just flew, helter-skelter, over the rough, little-used road that led to the Gubtil farm. Aunt Polly's gentle tones were unheeded.

All she could do was to carry the weakest in her arms over all the worst places, with a word of cheer, now and then, to some child who was not too much frightened to heed it.

"What a haven of safety the low, unpainted old farm-house looked to us, as we rushed, pell-mell, into the dooryard, never noticing, in our own relief, the ungracious scowl with which the master and mistress of the house regarded our advent.

"Aunt Polly soon explained matters, taking care to assure the inhospitable pair that our parents would amply recompense them for the trouble and expense we must, of course, be to them.

"The farmer held a whispered consultation with his wife, and I remember well his harsh, loud tones as he came back to Aunt Polly:

" 'They'll HAVE to stay, I s'pose; there don't seem no help for it now. There's pertaters in the cellar, an' they can roast an' eat what they want. I'll give 'em salt an' what milk an' brown bread they want, an' that's what they'll have to live on for the present. As for housin' 'em, the boys can sleep on the hay in the barn, an' the girls can camp down on rugs an' comforters on the kitchen floor. that's the best I can do, an' if they ain't satisfied they can go furder.'

"I remember just how he looked down at the troubled, childish faces upturned to his own, as if half hoping we might conclude to wander yet farther away from our imperilled homes; but Aunt Polly hastened to answer:

" 'Oh, we'll get along nicely with milk for the little ones, and potatoes and salt for the big boys and girls, and we won't trouble you any more nor any longer than we can help, Mr. Gubtil.'

"She stood upon the door-stone beside him as she spoke, a little, bent, slightly deformed figure, with a face shrivelled and faded like a winter-russet apple in spring-time, and a dress patched and darned till one scarcely could tell what the original was like, in a striking contrast to the tall, broad-shouldered, hale old man, whose iron frame had defied the storms of more than seventy winters; but I remember how he seemed to me a mere pigmy by the side of the generous, large-hearted woman whose tones and gestures had a protectiveness, a strength born of love and pity, that reassured us trembling little fugitives in spite of our ungracious reception. We felt that Aunt Polly would take care of us, let what would come.

"The hours dragged slowly away. Aunt Polly told us that the distant firing meant that our men had not retreated without an effort to defend the village. When this firing ceased, we began to watch and hope that some message would come from our fathers and mothers. But none came. We wondered among our little selves if they all had been put to death by the British, and even the oldest among us shed some dreary tears.

"Dan Parsons, who was the biggest boy among us and of an adventurous turn, went in the gathering twilight gloom down as near the village as he dared. He came shivering back to us with such tales of vague horror that our very hearts stopped beating while we listened.

" 'I crep' along under the shadder of the alders and black-berry bushes,' he began, ' 'til I got close ter De'con Milleses house.

'Twas as still as death 'round there, but jest as I turned the corner by the barn I see somethin' gray a-flappin' and a-flutterin' jest inside the barn door. I stopped, kind o' wonderin' what it could be, when all at once I thought I should 'a' dropped, for it came over me like a flash that it might be'--" 'What, what, Dan?' cried a score of frightened voices; and Dan replied solemnly: