“Well, that’s what grandpa means,” said Peter, resolved to carry his point.
“Father,” said Maria, “I want you to take him, ‘cause if Peter or Bertie was carried ‘way off where they didn’t know anybody, and where their father and mother wasn’t, they would want somebody who was good, to ask ‘em to come to their house and give them something to eat.”
“Wife, where did Peter get all this news that seems to have set him and the rest half crazy?”
“At Hooper’s, the shoemaker. He went to get his shoes, and Mr. Hooper told him that his father-in-law, John Wood, was going to-morrow to Hanscom’s tavern to get a redemptioner Mr. Wilson had brought over for him, and that neighbor Wood wanted him to get word to you that Wilson had a man and a boy left. Mr. Wood wants you to go over with him to-morrow and take the boy; he says you couldn’t do better.”
“I am going over there day after to-morrow to haul some wheat that I have promised; if the boy is there I shall most likely see him.”
“Oh, father, before that time somebody else may get him.”
“Well, Peter, let them have him; if he gets a place, that’s all that is needed.”
“But perhaps ‘twon’t be a good man like you who’ll get him.”
“He may be a great deal better man.”
More enthusiastic and persistent than her brothers, and unable to sleep, the little girl lay wakeful in her trundle-bed till her mother and father had retired, and then crawling in between them, put her arms around her father’s neck and whispered,—