"Oh!" I breathed, in alarm.
Now there was a long, high fence behind our house where the morning-glory vines climbed up and still up, and then fell in beautiful showers of purple and pink blossoms, and just in the very center of the fence where the vines were the thinnest there was a door,—a bright, green door, with a massive lock, and a huge key, and two great iron hinges. None of us children knew what lay on the other side; but there was something secret-looking about that door, as if it might lead into Bluebeard's house, or out into fairy lanes and meadows. Once, a good while ago, little Dick had climbed up to the top and looked over. Then he came down again in a scramble.
"What did you see, brother?" I quavered.
"The black people!" he replied, in a whisper.
He caught hold of my apron, and we both stood listening. It seemed to me that I could hear some one singing in the distance, a queer, elfish sort of a song, and once a step passed along outside the gate,—a loitering step.
"Run, sister, run!" Dick cried.
He caught me by the hand in sudden panic, and we both fled back to the house together, and we never went near the Green Door for whole days and days.
I remembered all this now, and I felt sorry for Dick. I think that Dick felt sorry for himself, for he looked around the bedroom almost wistfully when he went away. And he didn't slide down the banisters as he usually did, but walked downstairs, step by step, very slowly, and paused by the sitting room door. My mother was talking inside in quite a happy fashion. There was the buzz of the sewing-machine, and a murmur of conversation between her and grandmother, and once when she came to the end of a seam, once the machine stopped, and my mother laughed. When Dick heard that he went on down the hall with his head up; but he came to a halt in the dark corner to hug the hobby-horse, and he cut off a bit of its white mane, and put the piece carefully away in his pocket. Dick was always very fond of the hobby-horse.
"Good-bye, old fellow, good-bye," he said. "Don't forget me, Alcibiades."
Alcibiades pranced a little, but he did not say anything.