One moment only he wandered at John Cantwell. In the next he had forgotten everything about him and stood open-mouthed, gazing at the square doorway. In the sun-lit frame of it had appeared a little girl of twelve. She was dressed demurely in gray, set off with a bit of white kerchief. Her long skirt hid her toes and her hands were folded most properly. But above this sober stalk bloomed the fairest face that Jeremy had ever seen. She had merry hazel eyes, a straight little nose and a firm little chin. Her plain bonnet had fallen back from her head and the brown curls that strayed recklessly about her cheeks seemed to catch all the sunbeams in Delaware.
For a very little time she stood, and then the pursed red mouth could be controlled no longer. She opened it in a whoop of joy and catching up her skirts ran to smother Bob in a great hug. Next moment Jeremy, still in a daze, was bowing over her hand, as he had learned to do at New Castle. She dropped him a little curtsey and turned to meet Job.
Betty Cantwell and her father were Quakers from the Penn Colony to the north, Bob had time to tell Jeremy as they entered. That accounted for the staid simplicity of their dress and their quaint form of speech—the plain language, as it was called. Jeremy had heard of the Quakers, though in New England they were much persecuted for their beliefs by the Puritans. Here, apparently, people not only allowed them to live, but liked and honored them as well. He prayed fervently that Betty might never chance to visit Boston town. Yet already he half hoped that she would. Of course, he would have grown bigger by then, and would carry a sword and how he would prick the thin legs of the first grim deacon who dared so much as to speak to her! These imaginings were put to rout at the dining-room door by the delicious savor of roast turkey. One of the black farmhands had shot the great bird the day before, and the three travellers had arrived just at the fortunate moment when it was to be carved.
It was a dinner never to be forgotten. The twenty miles they had ridden through the crisp air would have given them an appetite, even had they not been normally good trenchermen, and there were fine white potatoes and yams that accompanied the turkey, not to mention some jelly which Betty admitted having made herself, "with cook's help." Bob joyfully attacked his heaped-up plate and ate with relish every minute that he was not talking. Jeremy could say not a word, for opposite him was Betty and in her presence he felt very large and awkward. His hands troubled him. Indeed, had it been a possibility, he would have eaten his turkey without raising them above the table edge. As it was, he felt himself blush every time a vast red fist came in evidence. Yet he succeeded in making a good meal and would not have been elsewhere for all Solomon Brig's gold. Perhaps Job, who was neither talkative nor under the spell of a lady's eyes, wielded the best knife and fork of the three.
Dinner over, and Bob's story finished, they were taken to see the stable and the broad tilled fields by the river bank, where corn stood shocked among the stubble. Afternoon came and soon it was time for them to start. There were laughing farewells and a promise that they would stop on the return trip, and before Jeremy could come back to earth the gloom of the forest shut in above their heads once more. They put the horses to a canter as soon as the ridge was cleared, for there were still ten miles to go and the light was waning. Jeremy was very much at home in the woods, but the chill, sombre depths that appeared and reappeared on either hand seemed to warn him to be prepared. He reached to the saddlebow, undid the flap of the pistol holster, and made sure that his weapon was loaded, then put it back, reassured. The footing was bad, and they had to go more slowly for a while. Then Bob, in the lead, came to a more open space where light and ground alike favored better speed. He spurred his horse to a gallop and had turned to call to the others, when suddenly the animal he rode gave a snort of fear and stopped with braced forefeet. Bob, caught off his guard, went over the horse's head with a lurch and fell sprawling on the ground in front. Then he gave a scream, for not two feet away he saw the short, cruel head of a coiled rattlesnake.
Jeremy, riding close behind, pulled up beside the other horse and threw himself off. Even as he touched the ground a sharp whirr met his ear and he saw the fat, still body and vibrating tail of the snake. He wrenched the pistol from the holster, took the quickest aim of his life and pulled the trigger. After the shot apparently nothing had changed. The whirr of the rattle went on for a second or two, then gradually subsided. Bob lay white-faced, and still as death. Jeremy drew a step closer and then gave a choked cry of relief. The snake's smooth, diamond-marked body remained coiled for the spring. Its lithe forepart was thrust forward from the top coil and the venemous, blunt head—but the head was no more. Jeremy's ball had taken it short off.
Bob was unhurt, but badly shaken and frightened, and they followed the trail slowly through the dusk. Then just as the shadows that obscured their way were turning to the deep dark of night a small light became visible straight ahead. They pushed on and soon were luxuriously stretched before a log fire in the Curtis plantation house, while Mrs. Robbins, the overseer's wife, poured them a cup of hot tea.
When bedtime came, Bob came over to Jeremy and gave him a long grip of the hand, but said never a word. There was no need of words, for the New England boy knew that his chum would never be quite happy till he could repay his act in kind. Yet he could not tell Bob that the shooting of a snake was but a small return for the gift of a vision of one of heaven's angels. Each felt himself the other's debtor as they got into the great feather bed side by side.