XIV
THE CHILDREN IN THE MOUNTAIN CABIN
"Heaven bless me!" exclaimed the little widow. Then she put Susan on the floor, and fell on her knees.
"Mammy, Mammy, look!" the children were hopping wildly around the big box, clutching the sides, each attempting to get hold of their mother's head as it sank between her trembling hands, while she rocked herself to and fro. At last Elvira, unable to keep her hold of the box-edge, the others were crowding her so, and at the same time to attract her mother's attention, stamped her foot violently and howled, "Look!" way up above all the rest of the voices.
"Oh, 'tisn't for us; 'tisn't for us. It's got to go back," moaned Mrs. Hansell, shivering down further between her hands.
At the mention of the box going back, dire alarm struck all the group into sudden silence, and they stared into each other's faces in the greatest distress.
"It shan't," screamed Elvira; "it's ours," and she plunged into the box with both hands, pulling out bundles, which she dropped to the floor, in order to dive for more.
"You hold on," cried Matthew and Mark, seizing her little brown hands.
"You lemme be!" cried Elvira, in a fury.
"No, we ain't a-goin' to let you be," cried Jane. The other girl, who had picked up Susan, who was sprawling in everybody's way, and run over to a corner to barricade her with a big chair turned upside down, now came hurrying back, determination in every line of her thin little face.