“It be good to see a bonny face,” replied the old woman; “take the bucket and fetch fresh water from the spring back o’ the five pines. Ay, but it be good to see a human face, to hear a young voice, and the sound o’ young feet. Haste, little one, whilst I cook another flapjack, which ye shall have wi’ a pouring o’ molasses.”
Abigail proceeded to the spring, joyful at the avenue of escape open to her. She planned to fill the bucket, leave it by the spring, and run away. But as she lifted the bucket to the stone ledge, the effort took all her strength. She could not help but think how like a dead weight it would seem to the old woman, with her bent back, when, finding that her guest did not return, she would hobble down to the spring. Strangely enough, the old woman seemed to her like a witch one moment, and the next reminded her of her own dear old Granny Brewster. So with a prayer in her heart, she carried the bucket up and set it down on the stoop, just without the threshold. There, as she had first seen her, stood the old woman cooking a flapjack, with her back turned to the door.
“It smells uncommon relishing for a witch-cake,” murmured Abigail, remembering with distaste the corn-bread in her pocket. She pictured to herself the old woman’s disappointment, when she should find her guest stolen away. Although possessed by fear, pity stirred within her breast, and, moved by a generous impulse, she put her hand in the front of her dress and drew forth a precious, rose-red ribbon with which she had intended to adorn herself when she reached Boston Town, and laid it on the threshold, near the bucket. Then, with an uncontrollable sob at this sacrifice, she ran swiftly away.
Copyright, 1898, by Lamson, Wolffe and Company
Strangely enough, the old woman seemed like a witch.
She heard the old woman calling after her to stop. Not daring to turn around, and ceasing to run, lest doing so should betray her fear, she doubled her thumbs in her palms and began to sing a psalm. Loudly and clearly she sang, the while she felt the hair rising on her head, fearing that she heard the old woman coming up behind her. Desperately she looked back. Still, very faintly in the deepening dusk, could she see the little old woman standing in the doorway, while from her hands fluttered the rose-red ribbon. And as the voice of an angel singing in the wilderness, Abigail’s singing floated back to her dull ears.
“He gently-leads mee, quiet-waters bye