"Husband, son!" she cried joyfully. "Nancy!—awake child!—it is thy father and brother!" and in another moment the door flew open, and Nancy and her mother flung their arms about the necks of the wanderers. When the horse had been cared for, they went into the cabin. Nancy raked the coals from the ashes, the fire blazed up, and the Goodwife gave them each a drink of hot milk. Zeb blinked sleepily at the reunited and happy family, as Dan and his father told their adventures, and when at last they had gone to their beds in the loft he sank down on a husk mattress which the Goodwife had spread for him on the floor, and in two minutes was sound asleep.
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[page 113]
V
THE NEW HOME
Goodman Pepperell and his wife rose early the next morning, and, leaving the two children still sleeping; crept down the ladder to the floor below. There lay Zeb, also sound asleep, with his toes toward the ashes like a little black Cinderella. The Goodwife's mother heart was stirred with pity as she looked down at him. Perhaps she imagined her own boy a captive in a strange land, unable to speak the language, with no future but slavery and no friends to comfort his loneliness.