“Are the Injuns after you?” inquired Great-great-grandmother Letitia.

“I don’t know, but I heard branches crackling in the wood,” replied the terrified boy-voice, “and I saw your light through the shutters.”

“You rake the ashes over the fire, while I let him in,” ordered the great-great-grandmother Letitia, peremptorily, and Letitia obeyed.

She raked the ashes carefully over the fire, she hung blankets over the shutters, so there might be no tell-tale gleam, and the other Letitia drew bolts and bars, then slammed the door to again, and the bolts and bars shot back into place.

When Letitia turned around she saw a little boy of about her own age who looked strangely familiar to her.  He was clad in homespun of a bright copperas color, and his hair was red, cut in a perfectly round rim over his forehead.  He had big blue eyes, which were bulging with terror.  He drew a sigh of relief as he looked at the two girls.

“If,” said he, “I had only had a musket I would not have run, but Mr. Holbrook and Caleb and Benjamin went hunting this morning, and they carried all the muskets, and I had nothing except this knife.”

With that the boy brandished a wicked-looking knife.

“You might have done something with that,” remarked
Great-great-grandmother Letitia, and her voice was somewhat scornful.

“Yes, something,” agreed the boy.  “It is a good knife.  My father killed a big Injun and took it only last week.  It is a scalping knife.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked the great-great-grandmother Letitia, “that you don’t know enough to use that knife, great boy that you are?”

The boy straightened himself.  He saw the other Letitia and his blue eyes were full of admiration and bravery.  “Of course I know how,” said he.  “Haven’t I killed ten wolves and aren’t their heads nailed to the outside of the meeting-house?”

Letitia was quite sure that the boy lied, but she knew that he lied to please her, and she liked him for it.

Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed.  “You are the greatest braggart in the Precinct,” said she.  “Nary a wolf have you killed, and you ran because you heard a wild cat or a bear.  Where are the Injuns, pray?”

“I know there were Injuns after me,” said the boy earnestly, “but perhaps I frightened them away.  I brandished my knife as I ran.”

Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed again, but she looked anxious.  “I hope,” said she, “that father and mother will not be molested on their way home.”

“Give me a musket,” declared the boy bravely, “and I will guard the path.”

“You!” returned Great-great-grandmother Letitia scornfully.  “You are naught but a child.”

“I can handle a musket as well as a man,” said Josephus Peabody with such a straightening of his small back that it seemed positively alarming, and another glance at Letitia, who returned it.  She thought him a very pretty boy, and quite brave, offering to guard the path all alone, although he was so young, not much older than she was.