The Puritan Twins

by Lucy Fitch Perkins

Nancy laughed and, breaking a slice of brown-bread in two, gave a piece to each boy. "Take that to stay your stomachs," she said, "and, for the rest, have patience."

For a long time they waited, and still there was no sound of hoofs upon the road. Dusk deepened into darkness, and the harvest moon came out from behind a cloud and shed a silvery light over the landscape. Nancy went to the door and gazed toward the road.

"Dost think, brother, the Indians have waylaid them?" she asked Dan at last.

"Nay," answered Dan. "They are likely delayed at the ferry. Should the ferry-man be at his supper wild horses could not drag him from it, I 'll be bound. They 'll come [page 137] presently, never fear, but it will doubtless grieve them much to see me lying stiff and cold on the hearth! Nancy, thou takest a fearful chance in denying thy brother food."

But Nancy only laughed at his woebegone face. "Thou art indeed a valiant trencher-man," she said. Then, suddenly inspired, she brought him the extra pumpkin, which she had not used for the pies, set it before him upon the hearth-stone, and gave him a knife. "Carve thyself a jack-o'-lantern," she said. "'T will take up thy mind, and make thee forget thy stomach." [page 138] Dan took the knife, cut a cap from the top of the pumpkin, and scooped out the seeds. Then he cut holes for the eyes and nose, and a fearful gash, bordered with pointed teeth, for the mouth, and Nancy brought him the stub of a bayberry candle to put inside. Zeb watched the process with eyes growing wider and wider as the thing became more and more like some frightful creature of his pagan imagination. They were just about to light the candle when Nimrod gave a sharp bark; there was a creaking noise outside, and Nancy, springing joyfully to her feet, shouted, "They 've come!—they 've come!" She was halfway to the door, when suddenly she stopped, stiff with fright.

There, looking in through the open shutter, was the face of an Indian! Dan and Zeb saw it at the same moment, and Nimrod, barking madly, rushed forward and leaped at the window. Giving one of his wildcat shrieks, Zeb instantly went up the ladder to the loft with the agility of a monkey. [page 139] The head had bobbed out of sight so quickly that for an instant Nancy hardly believed her own eyes, but in that instant Dan had been quick to act. He pressed the catch concealed in the fireplace, and, springing to his feet, seized Nancy and dragged her back into the secret closet. They nearly fell over the pumpkin, which lay directly in their path, and it rolled before them into the closet.

Once inside, they instantly closed the door, and, with wildly beating hearts, sank down in the darkness. About a foot above the floor there was a small knot-hole in the door, which the Goodman had purposely left for a peep-hole, and to this Dan now glued his eyes. In spite of Nimrod's frantic barking the house door was quietly opened, and when the dog flew at the intruder, he was stunned by a blow from the butt end of a musket, and his senseless body sent flying out of the door by a kick from a moccasined foot.

Then two Indians crept stealthily into [page 140] the room. They were surprised to find it empty. Where could the children have gone? They prowled cautiously about, looking under the table and behind everything that might afford a hiding-place, and, finding no trace of them, turned their attention in another direction. Dan was already near to bursting with rage and grief over Nimrod, and now he had the misery of seeing the larger of the two Indians take his father's musket from the deer-horn on the chimney-piece, while the other, who already had a gun, with grunts of satisfaction took the silver tankard from the table and hid it under his deer-skin jacket. At first they did not seem to notice the ladder to the loft. Soon, however, they paused beside it, and after they had exchanged a few grunts the larger Indian began to mount. It was plain they meant to make a thorough search for the children who had so miraculously disappeared.

Dan remembered what his father had said about the Pequots; Nancy, with sick fear [page 141] in her heart for Zeb, was shivering in a heap on the floor, her hands over her eyes, though that was quite unnecessary, since the closet was pitch dark. Dan found her ear and whispered into it a brief report of what he had seen. They could now hear the stealthy tread of moccasined feet above them on the floor of the loft.