“Oh, yes! Why, you can teach me all you know!” Mollie agreed eagerly, thinking how fortunate she was to have such a friend.
“Perhaps so,” responded Berry a little doubtfully. “Anyway I am sure I can teach you to write, and then if you ever go away again you can write me.”
“I don’t want to ever go away again,” Mollie declared soberly, remembering the weeks of uncertain wanderings about the mountains during the past winter; weeks when she had often known cold and hunger and fear, and that made her rough cabin home seem a place of comfort and safety, and which she hoped never again to leave.
Clasping Berry’s hand, and tightly holding her birthday doll, “Mis’ Ellen Arnold,” to which Mollie had clung during all her wanderings, Mollie listened happily to Berry’s plan for teaching her to write, and to learn wonderful things, such as who discovered America, the places first settled, and of the great rebellion that had made America an independent nation.
Mrs. Arnold was standing at the cabin door as the two little girls came up the path, and smiled as she noticed how eagerly they were talking and how much better Mollie seemed. But where was Lily, she wondered, for there was no sign of Lily; and after greeting Mollie and telling Berry that she and Mollie could help themselves to a freshly baked ginger cake that was cooling on the kitchen table, she began to ask about the missing Lily.
“Where is Lily?” she questioned; and much to her surprise was obliged to repeat her question before Berry replied:
“Oh! Lily’s coming.”
So supposing the colored girl might appear at any moment, Mrs. Arnold did not question Berry further. Berry brought her slate to the porch steps, and began to show Mollie how to trace letters, and for a time no more was said in regard to Lily’s absence. But as the hour of noon drew near and there was no sign of her, and when Mrs. Arnold had several times come to the cabin door and looked down the path in search of the missing girl, Berry began to feel uneasy. Suppose after all the stranger was in search of runaway slaves and had recognized Lily, she thought fearfully, and had captured the negro girl and taken her away! And Berry found it difficult to sit quietly beside Mollie on the porch step instead of rushing off to search for Lily.
Dinner-time came and as they gathered at the table Lily was still missing, and now Mrs. Arnold also began to feel anxious. She wondered if it might not be possible that Lily had tired of living with them; or, perhaps becoming frightened by the rumors of advancing armies, had again started on her wanderings, and she questioned Berry very closely as to probable reasons for Lily’s absence, and finally said:
“After this Lily must remain in the cabin, or near at hand, unless I give her permission to go with you, Berry. Now that Mollie is once more at home you can have her for a companion, and will not need Lily with you so constantly.”