“That being so, what is it?” the farmer asked, with his hands on his knees.
“Well, Mr. Beech,” the school-teacher began, noting with a swift side-glance that M’rye had returned, and was herself rearranging the table. “I don’t think you can have heard it, but some important news has come in during the day. There seems to be different stories, but the gist of them is that a number of the leading Union generals have been discovered to be traitors, and McClellan has been dismissed from his place at the head of the army, and ordered to return to his home in New Jersey under arrest, and they say others are to be treated in the same way, and Fath—some people think it will be a hanging matter, and—”
Abner waved all this aside with a motion of his hand. “It don’t amount to a hill o’ beans,” he said, placidly. “It’s jest spite, because we licked ’em at the elections. Don’t you worry your head about that!”
Esther was not reassured. “That isn’t all,” she went on, nervously. “They say there’s been discovered a big conspiracy, with secret sympathizers all over the North.”
“Pooh!” commented Abner. “We’ve heer’n tell o’ that before!”
“All over the North,” she continued, “with the intention of bringing across infected clothes from Canada, and spreading the small-pox among us, and—”
The farmer laughed outright; a laugh embittered by contempt. “What cock-’n’-bull story’ll be hatched next!” he said. “You don’t mean to say you—a girl with a head on her shoulders like you—give ear to such tomfoolery as that! Come, now, honest Injin, do you mean to tell me you believe all this?”
“It don’t so much matter, Mr. Beech,” the girl replied, raising her face to his, and speaking more confidently—“it don’t matter at all what I believe. I’m talking of what they believe down at the Corners.”
“The Corners be jiggered!” exclaimed Abner, politely, but with emphasis.
Esther rose from the chair. “Mr. Beech,” she declared, impressively; “they’re coming up here to-night! That bonfire of yours made ’em mad. It’s no matter how I learned it—it wasn’t from father—I don’t know that he knows anything about it, but they’re coming here! and—and Heaven only knows what they’re going to do when they get here!”