Boys and Girls of Colonial Days Part 8

"I will leave the key to the barn in your charge, Patience, and on no account give it to any one until I return. Your father tells me that his store of powder and shot is increasing daily, and we are likely to need these before long."

Mistress Arnold sighed as she stepped over the threshold and took her way-a tall, straight figure in gray crinoline-between the pink clouds that the apple blooms made, and then out of sight.

Small Patience Arnold, a little brown-eyed la.s.s who had seen eight summers in the quaint, white-walled town of Lexington, watched her mother. Then she leaned back in the stiff, wooden chair that was so much too high for her, drawing a weary little sigh. It was very dull, indeed, and stupid to stay in the bare kitchen. All outdoors, the first bees, the robins, and the perfume of the apple trees called her. Oh, if she might only drop her sewing to the floor, and run out to the garden, darting in and out among the trees like a bluebird in her straight frock of indigo-dyed homespun. If she might only sing in her sweet, clear voice, above the hum of bees and birds, the songs that her mother knew-the songs of merry old England where every one was happy, and everything was gay!

But, no, she must not go. There was the square of rough cloth in her hand, and the sticky needle, and the thread that would knot in spite of Patience's care. Every little girl in Lexington had finished a sampler, and some of them two, by the time they were nine. She must hurry, for the afternoon was wearing away. Soon the sun would drop behind the orchard. Such a long name it was to sew-Patience Arnold.

Patience took up her needle again and began to count the st.i.tches and embroider the letters, P. A. T. There were so many of the letters, and they were very crooked, for all the world like the new minutemen whom her father drilled on the village green when it was dusk. No one saw the minutemen march and countermarch, and no one could hear their feet in the soft gra.s.s. Patience laughed to herself, a merry little trill of a laugh, as she bent over the letters of her work.

"You are Mistress Anderson's lad who has such long legs and thinks he will be the captain of the militia some day."

Patience pointed to the A.

"And you-" She put her needle in the T.

But a long shadow lay across the doorsill. There were other shadows on the gra.s.s outside. Where had they come from? Why, the orchard was full of soldiers. One stood, even now, in front of Patience-a most gallant gentleman in scarlet broadcloth and gold lace, holding his c.o.c.ked hat in his hand and smiling down at the little girl.

"So the b.u.mpkins of this little town of Lexington, too, have taken upon themselves the gentle art of soldiering. It is high time that his Majesty interfered."

The man seemed to speak to himself. Then he bent so low over the little girl in her straight-backed chair that the gilt fringe which dangled from his epaulets brushed Patience's cheek.

"Such a pretty little la.s.s, and so industrious, as she sits alone in this great house-"

He paused, watching Patience's trembling little brown fingers. She was frightened by this emissary of the King. Then he continued, "I would ask shelter for my men."

He pointed to a score of soldiers in red coats who swarmed the dooryard now, laughing, brawling, and trampling on Mistress Arnold's beds of savory herbs.

"The day is warm, and we have had a long march from Boston town. I would that my men might lie and rest a s.p.a.ce on the cool hay of your barn, my little lady. We have tried the door, but we find it barred, and the key is missing from the padlock. Will you give me the key, little maid?"

Patience bent lower over her work as the last words came from the man's lips. Reaching in her homespun pocket for the key which her mother had given her, she clasped it in her hand and held it underneath the sampler as she st.i.tched the letters once more. For a second she did not speak.

It seemed as if her throat was burning. Her lips were dry with fear.

Then she looked up, smiling a wistful little smile.

"No, kind sir. I can not give you the key."

"Oho, so the little lady is stubborn."

The man crossed to the door and motioned to the waiting soldiers outside. In a second they had obeyed his summons, swarming Mistress Brewster's clean kitchen and covering the spotless floor with the dust of the high road.

"Search the house!" commanded their leader. "Yonder stubborn girl is tongue-tied, and stubborn. She will neither give up the key, nor tell me where it is. Overturn the chests of drawers; tear up the carpets, break down the doors, spare nothing, I say, but bring me the key of yonder barn."

No sooner were the words spoken than the work of pillage began. Sounds of doors and hinges wrenched from their places, the tramp of rough boots on the floor above her head, the rattle of chests told the frightened little Patience that the work of searching the house had begun. It seemed to her that the key would burn its way straight through her palm, so hot it was. Her hands trembled, and her eyes filled with tears so that she could scarcely see her needle. But still she st.i.tched, never leaving her chair, nor lifting her white little face.

The soldier who had given the command remained in the kitchen pacing restlessly up and down, his arms folded, and a frown deepening on his forehead.

"P. A. T. I. E. N."-Patience was nearing the edge of the sampler, and it was with difficulty that she st.i.tched because of the key that lay underneath the cloth. The letters were, indeed, crooked and straggling, and lacking the precision of even those that spelled the text. There was no sound in the room, now, save the ticking of a tall clock and the tread of the soldier's feet.

Suddenly the soldier in command stopped in front of Patience's chair and laid a heavy hand on her little bare, brown arm. He spoke, and the words were full of anger.

"Enough of this nonsense! Give me the key, I say. I will have it!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'GIVE ME THE KEY I SAY'"]

Patience slipped out of her chair and down to the floor, holding her sampler, covering the hidden key, as high as the man's eyes. He loosed his grasp upon her arm, looking at her in wonder. Such a little la.s.s, in her straight blue frock, and not as tall as his own little girl in England. She had the same soft eyes, though, and the same low, sweet voice.

"I would gladly give you what you wish, sir," she began bravely, "but I promised my mother I would deliver the key to no one until she returned.

Look!" She held the sampler still higher. "I am st.i.tching my name. Is it not a stupid task on such a pretty day?"

"_A soft answer turneth away wrath._" The man read the text at the top of the sampler. Then he looked out of the window and farther than the apple trees.

"It is indeed neatly st.i.tched, little la.s.s," he said. "My own Elizabeth is even now making her sampler, and wetting it with tears until I return to her, overseas."

He gave a quick command to his men, who filed down the stairs, empty handed, and into the garden. Then he raised his hat in salute, and followed them as they marched slowly down the road and farther than Patience could see.

"My little girl-my Patience-are you safe?"

It was Mistress Arnold who ran across the orchard and into the kitchen, clasping the trembling little la.s.s in her arms. "We saw the red coats from Mistress Brewster's window and knew that they had been here. But you are unharmed-and the guns-the powder?"

"I spoiled my sampler, mother," Patience gave a sobbing laugh as she held up her work with the crookedly st.i.tched ending, and the unfinished name. "It is as you feared. I started my name too near the border and there is no room to finish it, but"-she held out the precious bit of iron, "here is the key."

Sampler

A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ RSTUVWXYZ123456789 Patience Arnold

THE STAR LADY

From Tabitha Wells, aged ten, at Philadelphia, in the year 1776, to her cousin John Bradford, at Boston-a letter.

"My Dear John:

"It does seem more than a month ago that I said good-bye to you, and you took your long journey home again. Your visit was a bright spot in these troubled times. Do you remember the pair of robins that we watched building their nest in grandmother's old apple tree. They have raised their brood of young ones now and the little birds have flown away. The old birds still live in the apple tree, though, and each day at sunrise and sunset they sing as if all the world were gay instead of fallen into this sad Revolution. And the early apples are as red as the coat of a British soldier and are dropping all over the gra.s.s of the garden.

"Grandmother gave me a pewter canister that used to hold tea-she knew it would be a long time before we have any more tea to put in it. I have filled it full of apples, one layer of fruit and then one of leaves to keep them from bruising. It is as sweet smelling as our garden, John, where you played with me so many happy days this spring. It is for you; the apples shall go to you by the next packet.

"But here I am writing you of such everyday matters as robins and apples, and wasting paper which is rising in price, and using up one of my grandfather's best quill pens and his ink stone. I had other things in mind to tell you, John, when I started this letter-things of far greater importance.

"Strange happenings have come to your cousin Tabitha Wells in Philadelphia since she said goodbye to you, John. I feel as if I, a little girl of only ten summers, and not as learned as I should be, were of a part with these great and stirring times in the Colonies.

"To wit, as the barristers say. And now, my dear John, I will tell my story.

"I mind that we played so much at home when you visited me, John, that I had no time to take you to the little upholstery shop on Arch Street, near grandmother's house, which is my special delight.

"It is kept by one Mistress Betsy Ross, not much more than a grown-up girl. They say she is little past twenty in years, and she has a great pleasure in letting me visit and watch her at work. Her husband was a brave young patriot of our Colonies and was but a brief s.p.a.ce since killed. Mrs. Betsy always helped him in his shop and now that he will be there no longer, and she being most skillful with her needle, she is carrying on the work of the shop herself.

"When I have finished wiping the dinner service for grandmother, I often ask leave to go down for the rest of the afternoon to the shop of Mistress Betsy. I mind that we are both of us lonely; I, the only child in so quiet a house as this in which my father left me when he joined the army; and she a slim, sweet lady, all alone in her shop.