approached the
door, and spoke quite coolly. "Who may be without?" said she.

She had taken a musket as she crossed the room, and stood with it
levelled. Letitia also took a musket and levelled it, but it shook
and it seemed as if her great-great-grandmother was in considerable
danger.

There came another pound on the door, and a boy's voice cried out
desperately. "It's me, let me in."

"Who is me?" inquired Great-great-grandmother Letitia, but she
lowered her musket, and Letitia did the same, for it was quite
evident that this was no Indian and no catamount.

"It is Josephus Peabody," answered the boy's voice, and Letitia
gasped, for she remembered seeing that very name on the genealogical
tree which hung in her great-aunt Peggy's front entry, although she
could not quite remember where it came in, whether it was on a main
branch or a twig.

"Are the Injuns after you?" inquired Great-great-grandmother Letitia.

"I don't know, but I heard branches crackling in the wood," replied
the terrified boy-voice, "and I saw your light through the shutters."

"You rake the ashes over the fire, while I let him in," ordered the
great-great-grandmother Letitia, peremptorily, and Letitia obeyed.

She raked the ashes carefully over the fire, she hung blankets over
the shutters, so there might be no tell-tale gleam, and the other
Letitia drew bolts and bars, then slammed the door to again, and the
bolts and bars shot back into place.

When Letitia turned around she saw a little boy of about her own age
who looked strangely familiar to her. He was clad in homespun of a
bright copperas color, and his hair was red, cut in a perfectly round
rim over his forehead. He had big blue eyes, which were bulging with
terror. He drew a sigh of relief as he looked at the two girls.

"If," said he, "I had only had a musket I would not have run, but Mr.
Holbrook and Caleb and Benjamin went hunting this morning, and they
carried all the muskets, and I had nothing except this knife."

With that the boy brandished a wicked-looking knife.

"You might have done something with that," remarked
Great-great-grandmother Letitia, and her voice was somewhat scornful.

"Yes, something," agreed the boy. "It is a good knife. My father
killed a big Injun and took it only last week. It is a scalping
knife."

"Do you mean to say," asked the great-great-grandmother Letitia,
"that you don't know enough to use that knife, great boy that you
are?"

The b