draughts of the wind. It must have been snowing outside, for little
piles of snow were scattered here and there about the room.

"Where--am--I?" Letitia asked feebly, but no sooner had she opened
her mouth than her great-great-great-grandmother, Goodwife Hopkins,
who had been watching her chance, popped in the pewter spoon full of
some horribly black and bitter medicine.

Letitia nearly choked.

"Swallow it," said Goodwife Hopkins. "You swooned away, and it is
good physic. It will soon make you well."

Goodwife Hopkins had a kind and motherly way, but a way from which
there was no appeal. Letitia swallowed the bitter dose.

"Now go to sleep," ordered Goodwife Hopkins.

Letitia went to sleep. There might have been something quieting to
the nerves in the good physic. She was awakened a little later by her
great-great-grandmother and her two great-great-aunts coming to bed.
They were to sleep with her. There were only two beds in Captain John
Hopkins's house.

Letitia had never slept four in a bed before. There was not much
room. She had to turn herself about crosswise, and then her toes
stuck into the icy air, unless she kept them well pulled up. But soon
she fell asleep again.

About midnight she was awakened by wild cries in the woods outside,
and lay a minute, numb with fright, before she remembered where she
was. Then she nudged her great-great-grandmother, Letitia, who lay
next her.

"What's that?" she whispered fearfully.

"Oh, it's nothing but a catamount. Go to sleep again," said her
great-great-grandmother sleepily. Her great-great-aunt, Phyllis, the
youngest of them all, laughed on the other side.

"She's afraid of a catamount," said she.

Letitia could not go to sleep for a long while, for the wild cries
continued, and she thought several times that the catamount was
scratching up the walls of the house. When she did fall asleep it was
not for long, for the fierce yells she had heard when she had first
opened her little green door sounded again in her ears.

This time she did not need to wake her great-great-grandmother, who
sat straight up in bed at the first sound.

"What's that?" whispered Letitia.

"Hush!" replied the other. "Injuns!"

Both the great-great-aunts were awake; they all listened, scarcely
breathing. The yells came again, but fainter; then again, and fainter
still. Letitia's great-great-grandmother settled back in bed again.

"Go to sleep now," said she. "They've gone awa