“What! Did he burn Broad Acres?� exclaimed Patsy.
“Oh, Cousin Mayo! How do you know?� asked Alice.
“Dick heard Emma say that night that ‘the old devil was burning little Miss Anne.’ At first I couldn’t get anything out of her; she insisted it was Satan she meant. But, now that Solomon Gabe is dead, she confesses that he told her the night before not to let Mary Jane sleep at Broad Acres; ‘the torch of the Lord was lit for that house.’ She kept her daughter at home; and then she was afraid to tell, partly for fear of being blamed herself and still more from fear of Solomon Gabe. I’m pretty sure he put the glass in the flour at Larkland. He was at the mill that day, I remember.�
“Do you reckon any of the other darkies knew about it?� asked Anne.
“They probably knew a little and suspected more; like Emma they were afraid to tell.�
“Louviny talked mighty queer one day when Patsy and I were there,� said Anne.
“Smith had made all sorts of promises and threats to her and Lincum,� said Mr. Osborne. “When Kit destroyed the war gardens, he was merely acting in the spirit of what he heard at home. Scalawag told us about that; didn’t he, Billy boy?�
“Yes, sirree!� said Sweet William, waggling his head proudly. “Hasn’t anybody helped war gardens more than me and Scalawag.�
“Look here, Anne! Here’s where I found your footprints, turning from the road up to the path,� said Dick.
“I saw somebody through the bushes; I thought it was you, and I followed, down that ladder; and then that man—I didn’t know who he was—pushed me in the pit and pulled out the ladder. Oh, Dick! here’s where I thought they had us, on the way out. I stepped on a twig, and it snapped—like a pistol shot it sounded.� Anne shuddered at the memory.