"Give 'em to me," cried Joe. "Here's a basket, drop 'em in, and I'll run like a brush-fire through the town and across the old bridge, and hide 'em as safe as a weasel's nap."
Joe's fingers were creamy; his mouth was half filled with Johnny-cake, and his pocket on the right bulged to its utmost capacity with the same, as he held forth the basket; but the little woman was afraid to trust him, as she had been afraid to trust her neighbors.
"No! No!" she replied, to his repeated offers. "I know what I'll do. You, Joe Devins, stay right where you are till I come back, and, don't you ever LOOK out of the window."
"Dear, dear me!" she cried, flushed and anxious when she was out of sight of Uncle John and Joe. "I WISH I'd given 'em to Col. Barrett when he was here before daylight, only, I WAS afraid I should never get sight of them again."
She drew off one of her stockings, filled it, tied the opening at the top with a string-plunged stocking and all into a pail full of water and proceeded to pour the contents into the well.
Just as the dark circle had closed over the blue stockings, Joe Devin's face peered down the depths by her side, and his voice sounded out the words: "O Mother Moulton, the British will search the wells the VERY first thing. Of course, they EXPECT to find things in wells!"
"Why didn't you tell me before, Joe? but now it is too late."
"I would, if I'd known what you was going to do; they'd been a sight safer, in the honey tree."
"Yes, and what a fool I've been—flung MY WATCH into the well with the spoons!"
"Well, well! Don't stand there, looking," as she hovered over the high curb, with her hand on the bucket. "Everybody will know, if you do, there."