Knock! knock! It seemed to Meg she must have been asleep for hours, when she was awakened by a sound of low but continuous knocking at the back door, mingled with smothered shrieks from Amabel's little white bed.
In an instant Meg was beside her.
"Amabel, what is it? what's the matter?" she cried.
"Oh! oh!" gasped a voice half smothered under the blankets. "Don't you hear them? it's the robbers. Call Tom. Lock the door. Cover your head, or they'll shoot you."
Meg's teeth chattered with cold and fright together, as she hurried on her clothes.
"Robbers don't knock at doors," she said. "I'm going to see who is there;" and, despite another agonized shriek from Amabel, up went the window. The robber looked a very small one as he came out from the shadow and looked up. "Why, Jimmie Peters, is that you?" she said. "What's the matter?"
"Yes, it's me," answered the voice of a tiny boy. "Grandmother's took awful bad. Guess you'd better send your Seth for the doctor right away."
"Seth's away, and Tom's leg is very bad. Oh, what shall we do? Could you go?—do you know the way?"
"No, I don't; and I've gotter stay with granny."