"Martha! Martha?" shrieked Uncle John's quavering voice from the house door.
"Bless my heart!" she exclaimed, hurrying back over the stones.
"What's the matter with your heart?" questioned Joe.
"Nothing. I was thinking of Uncle John's money," she answered.
"Has he got money?" cried Joe. "I thought he was poor, and you took care of him because you were so good."
Not one word that Joe uttered did the little woman hear. She was already by Uncle John's side and asking him for the key to his strong box.
Uncle John's rheumatism was terribly exasperating. "No, I won't give it to you!" he cried, "and nobody shall have it as long as I'm above ground."
"Then the soldiers will carry it off," she said.
"Let 'em!" was his reply, grasping his staff firmly with both hands and gleaming defiance out of his wide, pale eyes. "YOU won't get the key, even if they do."
At this instant, a voice at the doorway shouted the words, "Hide, hide away somewhere, Mother Moulton, for the Red-coats are in sight this minute!"