“There may not be any Indians or catamounts there,” ventured Letitia.

“There might be something a great deal worse,” returned her great-great-grandmother severely.

After that there was silence between the two, and possibly also a little coldness.  Letitia knitted and her great-great-grandmother knitted.  Letitia also thought shrewdly.  She had very little doubt that the key which she had just been shown might unlock another little green door, and admit her to her past which was her ancestors’ future, but she realized that it was beyond her courage, even if she had the opportunity, to take it, and use it provided she could find the second little green door.  She had been so frightfully punished for disobedience, that she dared not risk a second attempt.  Then too how could she tell whether the second little green door would admit her to her grandmother’s cheese-room?  She felt so dizzy over what had happened, that she was not even sure that two and two made four, and b-o-y spelt boy, although she had mastered such easy facts long ago.  Letitia had arrived at the point wherein she did not know what she knew, and therefore, she resolved that she would not use that other little key with the green ribbon, if she had a chance.  She shivered at the possibilities which it might involve.  Suppose she were to open the second little green door and be precipitated head first into a future far from the one which had merged into the past, and be more at a loss than now.  She might find the conditions of life even more impossible than in her great-great-great-grandfather’s log cabin with hostile Indians about.  It might, as her great-great-grandmother Letitia had said, be much worse.  So she knitted soberly, and the other Letitia knitted, and neither spoke, and there was not a sound except the crackling of the hearth fire and bubbling of water in a large iron pot which swung from the crane, until suddenly there was a frantic pounding at the door, and a sound as if somebody were hurled against it.

Both Letitias started to their feet.  Letitia turned pale, but her great-great-grandmother Letitia looked as usual.  She approached the door, and spoke quite coolly.  “Who may be without?” said she.

She had taken a musket as she crossed the room, and stood with it levelled.  Letitia also took a musket and levelled it, but it shook and it seemed as if her great-great-grandmother was in considerable danger.

There came another pound on the door, and a boy’s voice cried out desperately.  “It’s me, let me in.”

“Who is me?” inquired Great-great-grandmother Letitia, but she lowered her musket, and Letitia did the same, for it was quite evident that this was no Indian and no catamount.

“It is Josephus Peabody,” answered the boy’s voice, and Letitia gasped, for she remembered seeing that very name on the genealogical tree which hung in her great-aunt Peggy’s front entry, although she could not quite remember where it came in, whether it was on a main branch or a twig.