Letitia had never slept four in a bed before.  There was not much room.  She had to turn herself about crosswise, and then her toes stuck into the icy air, unless she kept them well pulled up.  But soon she fell asleep again.

About midnight she was awakened by wild cries in the woods outside, and lay a minute, numb with fright, before she remembered where she was.  Then she nudged her great-great-grandmother, Letitia, who lay next her.

“What’s that?” she whispered fearfully.

“Oh, it’s nothing but a catamount.  Go to sleep again,” said her great-great-grandmother sleepily.  Her great-great-aunt, Phyllis, the youngest of them all, laughed on the other side.

“She’s afraid of a catamount,” said she.

Letitia could not go to sleep for a long while, for the wild cries continued, and she thought several times that the catamount was scratching up the walls of the house.  When she did fall asleep it was not for long, for the fierce yells she had heard when she had first opened her little green door sounded again in her ears.

This time she did not need to wake her great-great-grandmother, who sat straight up in bed at the first sound.

“What’s that?” whispered Letitia.

“Hush!” replied the other.  “Injuns!”

Both the great-great-aunts were awake; they all listened, scarcely breathing.  The yells came again, but fainter; then again, and fainter still.  Letitia’s great-great-grandmother settled back in bed again.

“Go to sleep now,” said she.  “They’ve gone away.”

But Letitia was weeping with fright.  “I can’t go to sleep,” she sobbed.  “I’m afraid they’ll come again.”

“Very likely they will,” replied the other Letitia coolly.  “They come ’most every night.”

The little great-great-aunt Phyllis laughed again.  “She can’t go to sleep because she heard Injuns,” she tittered.

“Hush,” said her sister Letitia, “she’ll get accustomed to them in time.”

But poor Letitia slept no more till four o’clock.  Then she had just fallen into a sweet doze when she was pulled out of bed.

“Come, come,” said her great-great-great-grandmother, Goodwife Hopkins, “we can have no lazy damsels here.”

Letitia found that her bedfellows were up and dressed and downstairs.  She heard a queer buzzing sound from below, as she stood in her bare feet on the icy floor and gazed about her, dizzy with sleep.

“Hasten and dress yourself,” said Goodwife Hopkins.  “Here are some of Letitia’s garments I have laid out for you.  Those which you wore here I have put away in the chest.  They are too gay, and do not befit a sober, God-fearing damsel.”

With that, Goodwife Hopkins descended to the room below, and Letitia dressed herself.  It did not take her long.  There was not much to put on beside a coarse wool petticoat and a straight little wool gown, rough yarn stockings, and such shoes as she had never seen.