“And here is our little maid from Province Town,” she said, putting her arm about Anne. “You are indeed welcome, dear child; and it is a fine time for a little girl to visit Boston.”
Mr. Freeman had expected his wife to ask what had become of Lady, and was surprised that she did not. He led the colt toward the stable, which stood in a paved yard back of the house, and Frederick ran ahead to open the stable door.
“Upon my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Freeman, for there in her own comfortable stall was Lady, munching her noonday meal as if everything was just as usual.
“The man got here last night with Lady,” explained Frederick; “he was in a great hurry to get a boat, and he told me—for mother was at a neighbor’s—that you’d be coming on to-day. Was he taking a message to American troops? Mother said that must be his business; that you’d lend Lady for no other reason,” and the boy looked at his father questioningly.
“I hope that may have been his errand,” said Mr. Freeman, “but I fear he was on other business. The Tories are more anxious than Americans for boats just now,” and he told the boy how Lady had been stolen. “But who ever it was must have known me and where I live,” he concluded; “’tis not every thief who leaves the horse in its owner’s stable.”
“But your name is on the little brass plate on Lady’s bridle,” Frederick reminded him, “so ’twould be easy if the man were honest.”
Mr. Freeman cautioned them not to tell any one but Rose’s mother of their discovery of the shingled house in the woods where Bill Mains had the hidden stores.
“No one knows just whom to trust these days,” he said, “and if such news was known to those who sympathize with the English they’d soon be after his guns and powder.”
“I think we will have a sewing-bee,” Mrs. Freeman said, when Rose had told her the story of Anne’s flight from Province Town, and that the little girl had no clothing, but had two golden guineas to spend. “You and Anne will have to be busy with your needles for a part of each day until she has proper clothes. And early to-morrow morning we will walk up to Mistress Mason’s shop on Cornhill and get her some shoes.”