t is getting dark
and pretty soon we won't be able to see our way down through the
mesquite."

CHAPTER XI

A FIRE IN THE NIGHT

"Aunt Maria, will you let me make some molasses taffy? Monday is
Carrie's birthday and I haven't anything else to send her. She always
gives me something on my birthday. I will be real careful and clean up
everything when I am through."

"Well, I suppose you can try it, though I hate to have you messing
around while I am getting your father's things ready for his trip."

"I won't mess, truly, Aunt Maria," and thankful at receiving even this
grudging permission, she flew out into the tiny kitchen to the pleasant
task of candy-making, reciting, as she rattled among the pots and pans:

"Lars Porsena of Clusium,
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.

One cup of molasses, one cup of sugar--that molasses looks awfully
black; I wonder if the taffy will be dark. I like the light-colored
best.

'Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.'

A lump of butter and a tablespoon of vinegar. How pretty the stuff looks
boiling up higher and higher every minute. Hm, but it's hot work bending
over this stove.

Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread,
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
Rolled slowly toward the bridge's head,
Where stood the dauntless Three.

My! I would like to have been there and watched them. Isn't Horatius a
splendid name! And Herminius--isn't it grand! But they are like
Dionysius, no one ever uses them nowadays. I believe that candy is
almost done. It is brittle when I put it into water.

Round turned he, as not deigning
Those craven ranks to see;
Naught spake he to Lars Porsena,
To Sextus naught spake he."

She seized the kettle of boiling syrup and lifted it off the stove,
still speaking the impassioned lines of that stirring poem, and
gesticulating wildly, heedless of the utensils in her hands.

"So he spake, and speaking sheathed
The good sword by his side,
And with his harness on his back,
Plunged headlong in the tide."

Bang! went the kettle against a chair-back, and the seething, bubbling
mess of sticky brown syrup poured in a flood over furniture, girl and
floor