ring to alarm his wife, stopped on the door-stone and gently called
her name. He had called but once when a shutter was thrown open and
the Goodwife's head was thrust through it.

"Husband, son!" she cried joyfully. "Nancy!--awake child!--it is thy
father and brother!" and in another moment the door flew open,
and Nancy and her mother flung their arms about the necks of the
wanderers. When the horse had been cared for, they went into the
cabin. Nancy raked the coals from the ashes, the fire blazed up, and
the Goodwife gave them each a drink of hot milk. Zeb blinked sleepily
at the reunited and happy family, as Dan and his father told their
adventures, and when at last they had gone to their beds in the loft
he sank down on a husk mattress which the Goodwife had spread for him
on the floor, and in two minutes was sound asleep.

[Illustration]

V

THE NEW HOME

Goodman Pepperell and his wife rose early the next morning, and,
leaving the two children still sleeping; crept down the ladder to the
floor below. There lay Zeb, also sound asleep, with his toes toward
the ashes like a little black Cinderella. The Goodwife's mother heart
was stirred with pity as she looked down at him. Perhaps she imagined
her own boy a captive in a strange land, unable to speak the language,
with no future but slavery and no friends to comfort his loneliness.

"Poor lad--let him sleep a bit, too," she said to her husband.

They unbolted the door and stepped out into the sunlight of a perfect
June morning. The dew was still on the grass; robins and bobolinks
were singing merrily in the young apple trees, which, owing to a late,
cold spring, were still in bloom, and the air hummed with the music of
bees' wings.

The Goodman drew a deep breath as he gazed at the beauty about him.
"'T is good to be at home again," he said to his wife. "And 't is a
goodly land--aye, better even than old England! There 's space here,
room enough to grow." He looked across the river to the hills of
Boston town. "I doubt not we shall live to see a city in place of yon
village," he said; "more ships seek its port daily, and there are
settlements along the whole length of the bay. 'T is a marvel where
the people come from. The Plymouth folk are scattering to the north
and south, and already villages are springing up between Plymouth and
New Amsterdam. God hath prospered us, wife."

"Praise be to his holy name," said the Goodwife, reverently. "But,
husba