In reply to our cries and knocks, Arnold raised the curtain and we saw first his head, then Sim's, black against the lighted room.
"Who is there?" he called, "and what's wanted?"
Almost before we had finished pouring out our story, Arnold was downstairs and fumbling at the bolts of the door; and as we entered the dark store, Sim, his shoes in his hand, followed him, even more than usually grotesque in the light from above.
"My friends," said Arnold, calmly, "let us now, all four, prove to ourselves and to Seth Upham, the mettle that is in us."
We lost no time in idle speculation. Dividing among us all that was to be done, we fell to with a will. Working like men possessed, we packed our own possessions and Uncle Seth's, both at the store and at the barn; and while the others were still busy in the carriage-shed, I hurried back to the house and opened the safe, and brought out bags of money and papers and heaven knows what, and as secretly as possible packed them in the bottom of the wagon. For three hours we toiled at one place and the other; then, hot, tired, excited, apprehensive of we knew not what, we rested by the wagon and waited.
"I never heard of anything so rattle-headed in all my life," Sim Muzzy cried, when he had caught his breath. "Seth Upham gets crazier every day. Here all's ready for the grand farewell to-morrow and all of us to be there, and not one of us to leave town until next week, and yet he gets us up at all hours of the night as if we was to start come sunrise. I'm not going to run away at such an hour, I can tell you. Why it may be they'll call on me to make a speech! Who knows?"
"We'll be lucky, I fear," said Arnold Lamont, "if we do not start before sunrise."
"Before sunrise! Well, I'll have you know—"