“Try it,” urged Sammy; “this is great.”
The girls shrank away at Sammy’s approach. Unfortunately, they leaned against the bench, and how were they to know that this particular bench had a weak leg? Over it went, with a frightful clashing and crashing of kettles, and a perfect flood of gay color streamed over the woodshed floor, generously splashing shoes and stockings in spite of a hurried rush outside.
But at the corner of the house, the children almost wished they had stayed in the woodshed, and allowed themselves to be drowned in a sea of dye. For a dreadful figure rose before them, a figure whose hands dripped red, whose face was marked with red, whose apron bore the print of scarlet hands—and the dripping red hands were shaken angrily at them, and a hoarse voice called words to them they were too frightened to hear. It was only the rug woman, summoned by the noise from her task of re-dipping the faded red church carpet, but the sight of her almost stopped the children’s hearts from beating, and made their breath come quick.
Sammy, the boaster, he who often bragged that one day he would dispose single-handed of six red Indian braves on the war-path, even Sammy quailed, and, with not a thought of his companions, made a dash for Maggie, gazing over the fence with inquiring eyes, and with one bound seated himself in the cart. The girls made haste to follow, Mary Ellen with her arm about Lydia, for the lame ankle had received a cruel wrench, and tears were rolling down Lydia’s cheeks as she hopped and hobbled and stumbled along in her haste to be gone.
But at last they were safely in the cart, and Maggie, excited no doubt by Sammy’s shouts and the woman’s angry cries, broke into a canter that speedily took them out of sight and sound of the catastrophe. On sped Maggie, through the hot summer afternoon, past the mill, round the curve, down the broad road toward home.
And there a short distance from Friend Morris’s gate came running toward them Friend Deborah and Alexander. Poor Friend Deborah held a hand to her aching face, but she was able to gasp, “Oh, children, how thee has frightened me!”
“And exasperated me,” added truthful Alexander, as his eye traveled from panting little Maggie, with foam-flecked mouth, to the once neat little cart, now covered with dust, and badly stained within by spots and splashes of dye.
Good Quaker that he was, he said no more, but he looked grave as he listened to the story the children had to tell.
“Has thee stopped to think at all of the trouble and the loss thee has caused the poor rug woman, who never did thee any harm?” he inquired soberly.
The children hung their heads and did not answer. At last Mary Ellen, twisting the end of her braid, murmured, “I will give her my spending money until I’ve paid her back,” and Sammy nodded in agreement. As they each had a penny a week for spending money Alexander’s lips twitched, but this the children did not see.