“She is pretty near the truth,” returned Mr. Hollins. “I don’t know that she was exactly attacked, but she might have been; at any rate she was chased by a lynx down there in the hollow by the bridge.”
“Why, father, is that really so?” cried Kathie, looking at Elizabeth with new interest. “You poor, little child, I expect you were nearly scared to death.”
“How did you know it was a lynx?” asked Mrs. Hollins, putting an arm around Elizabeth.
“Because I shot it,” he made answer.
“Yes, he did,” Bert chimed in, feeling that he was not getting his share of the glory. “I ran and told him and he came with his rifle and we all hunted it up and there it was in a tree and father shot it. Gee! but it was big. It’s down at the blacksmith’s shop this very minute; you can see it there if you want to.”
Then the whole story was gone over and Elizabeth felt herself a great heroine, for she spared none of the details of her horror and fright when she was telling her part of the tale. In fact, she made it so graphic that Babs was afraid to go to bed lest a lynx or some other terrible beast should be in the closet or should creep in by the window. Seeing the effect of her story, Elizabeth tried to soothe her by telling her that angels with flaming swords would be near by to destroy any evil things.
“But,” whimpered Babs, “I is afaid of ze angels, too. I wiss zey wouldn’t have swords.”
So, as it fell to Elizabeth’s lot to put her little sister to bed that night, she had to promise to stay with her and see that there was nothing in or out of the room to frighten her. “I will sing ‘Glory to Thee, my God this night,’” she promised Babs. “I always sing it to myself when I am afraid, especially that verse that says ‘Let no ill dreams disturb my rest nor powers of darkness me molest.’”
“Does that mean Jim Powers?” inquired Babs, lifting her head.
“No, of course it doesn’t,” Elizabeth told her. “It means things like mosquitoes and bats.”