However, they soon tired of battling with Indians and decided that something more sentimental would be to their liking. “I’ll tell you what,” said Elizabeth; “there’s an old spinning-wheel somewhere about; we can get that and you can be Priscilla and say, ‘Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?’ You can be sitting at the wheel and be singing the hymn we had at school yesterday, and I will come in. I think there is an old hymn-book in the store closet where mother packs away the winter clothes. It is locked, but the key is hanging right by the door.”
They dragged forth the old spinning-wheel, after Priscilla had resumed her maidenly dress, and then they went to hunt up the dilapidated hymn-book which Elizabeth remembered having seen on the shelf of the locked closet. It was a Yale lock, but easily opened, and in a few moments they were inside the closet, which was really like a little room and was lighted by a small window high in the side. Elizabeth rummaged around and at last found the book.
“Here it is,” she announced. “Now we will see if the same hymn is in it.”
They sat down together on a box and began looking over the book. “What a queer smell this room has,” said Betsy.
“It is the camphor balls,” Elizabeth told her. “Mother has been unpacking some of the clothes for winter and I came across a paper box of the balls while I was looking for the book. Here’s the hymn all right, Betsy. Now, come, let’s go back.”
But this was easier said than done, for, upon trying the door, they found it had swung to and was locked, the key being still on the outside.
“Now we’ve done it,” cried Elizabeth. “We are prisoners, Betsy, for there is no possible way of getting out.”
“What shall we do?” cried Betsy, looking distressed.
“We can’t do anything till the family come home. We shall just have to stay here and amuse ourselves the best we can; it won’t be so very long. They will miss us and will come up to look, then when we hear them we will bang on the door and call to them.”
“But it may not be for ever so long after they get back.”