As if to add the last touch of melodrama to his warning, the author had executed a sketch of what was intended to be a skull and cross-bones.
Elizabeth looked at the paper and turned it over. After a while she heard the sound of Herbert’s footsteps and knew that in a second she would hear the familiar “Elizabeth!” This was not a responsibility to be shared with frightened Herbert. She laid the paper under the scarf on her bureau and crossed the hall to the kitchen, and there, as she moved about gathering her materials for supper, she had astonished and bitter thoughts.
“I didn’t make friends with the neighbors at first because I thought they might feel under obligations to help us! I thought that was the Eastern way!” She looked out into the darkening woods. “This is a polite neighborhood into which we have moved!” said she.
Chapter II
“WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH US?”
Chambersburg is a much larger town than Gettysburg, and to Elizabeth, who had bought her supplies there when she and Herbert had arrived in the early spring, it seemed now to promise more patrons. She would still be interested in Gettysburg and wished to learn all she could about the battle, but her relations with the town would henceforth be those of a tourist.
When morning dawned, she began to wonder whether Gettysburg’s rudeness was not a product of her own imagination.
“No town is going to hang out banners because Elizabeth Scott has arrived to sell onions!” said she to herself.
Of the paper found upon the floor she said nothing to Herbert. The whole incident seemed fantastic. It was silly to have been disturbed for an instant. The sign of the skull and cross-bones as an impelling threat had no longer any power, at least it should have none over Elizabeth Scott. It was doubtless the man with the gun who had thus favored her. Besides, she declined to be frightened by any man who spelled apples, “apels.”