Amanda was still sitting at the spring. “Anne,” she called shrilly, “may I go up to your house and play with you?”
Anne shook her head, and without a backward look at the child by the spring kept on her way toward home. She had much to tell her Aunt Martha, who listened, well pleased at her neighbor’s kind words.
“And Amanda Cary said that their cow was lost, and the Starkweathers’ cow, too. Amos Cary and Jimmie are off searching for them now, and do fear the Indians have driven them off,” said Anne.
“’twill be bad fortune indeed if that be true,” replied Mrs. Stoddard, “for we are not as well provisioned for the winter as usual, and it would be a worrisome thing to have the Indians bothering us on shore and the British to fear at sea. But I’ll take up your stockings to-day, Anne. The yarn is a handsome color, and well spun.”
“I think I will not leave Martha at the playhouse after this,” said Anne thoughtfully; “something might happen to her.”
Mrs. Stoddard nodded approvingly, and Anne brought the wooden doll in.
“Like as not your Uncle Enos will make you a wooden chair for the doll when the evenings get longer,” said Mrs. Stoddard. “He’s clever with his knife, and ’twill give him something to busy his hands with. I’ll call his attention to the doll.”
“My!” exclaimed Anne, “I do think an aunt and uncle are nice to have. And a father is too,” she added quickly, for she could not bear that any one should think that she had forgotten her own father.
“Yes, indeed, child; and there’s good news of your own father. He was on the British ship and escaped and made his way to Wellfleet to join the American soldiers.”
“Oh, Aunt Martha!” and the little girl sprang up from her little stool and grasped her good friend’s gown with eager hands, and then told her the story of her father’s visit. “But I could not tell it before,” she said.