s pace. What
then?" asked Miss Maitland.

"Well, I went. I run 'most all the way. I got there--an' he wasn't. He
wasn't at all!"

"Do you mean that he had left the cottage?"

"My suz! I should think he has. He's left, an' my log-cabin quilt's
left, an' my best feather tick, an' pillows, an' a pair blankets--that
kitchen-bedroom bedstead's stripped as clean as 'twas the day it was
born--I mean, sot up. Now--what do you think of that?"

"I think--Oh, what a miserable business it all is! I am so worried I
cannot sleep. Right and wrong, right and wrong, like the pendulum of the
clock the two sides of the matter swing in my mind till I'm
half-distracted. I hardly know what I am doing or saying, I am so
anxious to do the best for everybody, yet what is best? I have a fear
that those children asked me something absurd a few minutes ago, and I
said 'yes' to them without comprehending. I think they said 'a field of
pumpkins.' What could they want with a field--_a field_--of pumpkins?"

"Didn't want 'em, of course. Some their silliness. Don't worry. What's
punkins, anyhow, compared with that log-cabin quilt?"

"Little, to be sure. And I hope it isn't really lost. Are you certain
that the poor wretch is he you said?"

"As sure as I draw my breath," averred Susanna, solemnly.

"Then Squire Pettijohn must never know," said Eunice, with equal
solemnity.

After that they hurried silently onward again, reckless of the fact that
they had left a bedridden man alone in the house, for although the
deacon was still about his evening chores, such kept him wholly outside.
As for Katharine, she might or might not be on hand if Moses summoned
her. Evidently she and her boy-chum had some fine scheme on hand and
were away to put it in train, since they had both been more than
commonly excited and eager.

Never mind. There are times in life when its commonplace affairs must
yield to the extraordinary. These two quiet householders had come to
such a time on that late October day.

They had walked almost as far as Susanna's cottage when Eunice paused,
and held her companion also back, as she pointed through the darkening
wood to a wild-looking creature prowling among the trees. He was
evidently looking for something. His search so earnest and troubled that
the caution he had heretofore displayed had deserted him. Stooping,
poking among the leaves and bracken, rising, moving toward another tree,
stooping again--repeating endlessly this