“Is it going to be as hard as all that?” said Nat, smiling.
“Maybe it will be the hardest you ever heard. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if anybody had just told me. But I saw it. And when you see a thing, you must believe it.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Nat.
The dwarf here threw down the stick and placed his knife carefully in his pocket. Then he drew his short legs under him much after the posture of a Turk seated upon a rug.
“It was four nights ago,” he said, “that this thing happened.”
“What thing?” asked the other.
“I’ll come to that in a minute,” answered the Porcupine quietly. “You see I’d been in to town here because I wanted to see the people that were being so talked about; and when I got back to Germantown it was late and seemed about to come on rain. There ain’t a great many places where I’m allowed to sleep now, but I felt sure that Mr. Cooper wouldn’t take it ill if I crowded into the hay-mow in his barn for the night.”
“Why didn’t you come to the house?” said Nat. “You know they’d have found a bed for you.”
“Oh, I don’t like to be a trouble to people. And, then, as I said, it was late. But anyway,” proceeded the dwarf, “I was on the main road near Mr. Cooper’s; so I just crawled through the fence, walked across the back lot, and there I was behind the barn. There’s always places where you can get into barns, if you know how,” grinned the boy, “and I was just hunting around for a door or window that had been left open when I heard a dog bark.
“There are very few dogs ’round about Germantown that ain’t acquainted with me, and there’s no occasion for me to be afraid of any of them, for dogs never make any mistakes. But, anyhow, I stopped and listened because I thought there might be some one stirring.”