CHAPTER VII
THE BUCKET OF YEAST.
"Say," whispered Caleb, as soon as they were out of hearing of the store, "that Ledyard Barrow is a Tory."
"That is just what I have been thinking myself," replied Enoch, who was so surprised that he hardly knew what he said. "We have got to be awful careful about this thing or it will get out on us in spite of all we can do. I did not say anything wrong while I was talking to him, did I?"
"No, indeed, you did not. The first thing you know we will have Tories all around us, and the next thing will be for that vessel to trip her anchor and go farther off down the bay. Say, Enoch, I shall have to borrow a little of that powder of you until I can have—"
"You may have it," interrupted Enoch. "There is more here than I want. But to think that we have unearthed another Tory. That is what gets to me."
"It looks to me as though every neighbor was going to have to fight the man who lives next to him," said Caleb, taking off his hat and scratching his head furiously.
"Well, I would rather they would make themselves known so that we may know just what we have to expect. I wish Zeke would happen along here just now. I would like to know what he thinks about it."
But Zeke had business to attend to where he was, and the boys did not get a chance to speak to him that night. When they came to Caleb's house, Enoch turned in with him to give him what he thought he should want of the powder, and found Caleb's mother engaged in knitting with her Bible open on her knee before her. The boys looked for success in the size of their crowd to enable them to overcome the schooner's crew, while Mrs. Young, like Enoch's mother, looked for it to a source from which it was sure to come if she asked for it in the right spirit. Enoch hastily took off his hat when he entered the house. The presence of that open Book upon her lap called for all the reverence he was capable of.