Letitia was quite sure that the boy lied, but she knew that he lied to please her, and she liked him for it.
Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed. “You are the greatest braggart in the Precinct,” said she. “Nary a wolf have you killed, and you ran because you heard a wild cat or a bear. Where are the Injuns, pray?”
“I know there were Injuns after me,” said the boy earnestly, “but perhaps I frightened them away. I brandished my knife as I ran.”
Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed again, but she looked anxious. “I hope,” said she, “that father and mother will not be molested on their way home.”
“Give me a musket,” declared the boy bravely, “and I will guard the path.”
“You!” returned Great-great-grandmother Letitia scornfully. “You are naught but a child.”
“I can handle a musket as well as a man,” said Josephus Peabody with such a straightening of his small back that it seemed positively alarming, and another glance at Letitia, who returned it. She thought him a very pretty boy, and quite brave, offering to guard the path all alone, although he was so young, not much older than she was.
Great-great-grandmother Letitia took up a musket decidedly. “Very well,” said she, “if you can handle a musket like a man, here be the chance. Take this musket, and I will take one, and Letitia will take one, and we will leave the door ajar, so we can dash in if hard-pressed, and we will keep watch lest father and mother be attacked unawares at the threshold.”
Letitia was horribly afraid, but she had learned in the Spartan household of her ancestors, to be more afraid of fear than of anything else, so she pulled a blanket over her head and shouldered a musket, and, after the elder Letitia had unbarred and unbolted the door, they all stepped out into the night, armed and ready to guard the house.
“Candace can handle a musket and so can little Phyllis at a pinch,” said the elder Letitia thoughtfully, “but I for one am thinking that your Injuns are catamounts, Josephus Peabody.”