Fred Sheldon was the only child of a widow, who lived on a small place a mile beyond the village, and managed to eke out a living thereon, assisted by a small pension from the government, her husband having been killed during the late war.
A half-mile beyond stood a large building, gray with age and surrounded with trees, flowers and climbing vines. The broad bricks of which it was composed were known to have been brought from Holland long before the revolution, and about the time when George Washington was hunting for the cherry-tree with his little hatchet.
In this old structure lived the sisters Perkinpine—Annie and Lizzie—who were nearly seventy years of age. They were twins, had never been married, were generally known to be wealthy, but preferred to live entirely by themselves, with no companion but three or four cats, and not even a watch-dog.
Their ancestors were among the earliest settlers of the section, and the Holland bricks could show where they had been chipped and broken by the bullets of the Indians who howled around the solid old structure, through the snowy night, as ravenous as so many wolves to reach the cowering women and children within.
The property had descended to the sisters in regular succession, and there could be no doubt they were rich in valuable lands, if in nothing else. Their retiring disposition repelled attention from their neighbors, but it was known there was much old and valuable silver, and most probably money itself, in the house.
Michael Heyland was their hired man, but he lived in a small house some distance away, where he always spent his nights.
Young Fred Sheldon was once sent over to the residence of the Misses Perkinpine after a heavy snowstorm, to see whether he could do anything for the old ladies. He was then only ten years old, but his handsome, ruddy face, his respectful manner, and his cheerful eagerness to oblige them, thawed a great deal of their natural reserve, and they gradually came to like him.
He visited the old brick house quite often, and frequently bore substantial presents to his mother, though, rather curiously, the old ladies never asked that she should pay them a visit.
The Misses Perkinpine lived very well indeed, and Fred Sheldon was not long in discovering it. When he called there he never could get away without eating some of the vast hunks of gingerbread and enormous pieces of thick, luscious pie, of which Fred, like all boys, was very fond.
There was no denying that Fred had established himself as a favorite in that peculiar household, as he well deserved to be.