mshaw--a timid, tired-looking,
bony little woman who was never seen outside of her own house--said that
he was working out on the farm of a Mr. Beekman near Plattsburg. He had
gone over on the stage late in June to hire out for the haying. I
observed that my uncle looked very thoughtful as we rode back home and
had little to say.

"You never had any idee who that robber was, did ye?" he asked by and
by.

"No--I could not see plain--it was so dusk," I said.

"I think Purvis lied about the gang that chased him," he said. "Mebbe he
thought they was after him. In my opinion he was so scairt he couldn't
'a' told a hennock from a handsaw anyway. I think it was just one man
that did that job."

How well I remember the long silence that followed and the distant
voices that flashed across it now and then--the call of the mire drum in
the marshes and the songs of the winter wren and the swamp robin. It was
a solemn silence.

The swift words, "Your money or your life," came out of my memory and
rang in it. I felt its likeness to the scolding demands of Mr. Grimshaw,
who was forever saying in effect:

"Your money or your home!"

That was like demanding our lives because we couldn't live without our
home. Our all was in it. Mr. Grimshaw's gun was the power he had over
us, and what a terrible weapon it was! I credit him with never realizing
how terrible.

We came to the sand-hills and then Uncle Peabody broke the silence by
saying:

"I wouldn't give fifty cents for as much o' this land as a bird could
fly around in a day."

Then for a long time I heard only the sound of feet and wheels muffled
in the sand, while my uncle sat looking thoughtfully at the siding.
When I spoke to him he seemed not to hear me.

Before we reached home I knew what was in his mind, but neither dared to
speak of it.

People came from Canton and all the neighboring villages to see and talk
with me and among them were the Dunkelbergs. Unfounded tales of my
bravery had gone abroad.

Sally seemed to be very glad to see me. We walked down to the brook and
up into the maple grove and back through the meadows.

The beauty of that perfect day was upon her. I remember that her dress
was like the color of its fire-weed blossoms and that the blue of its
sky was in her eyes and the yellow of its sunlight in her hair and the
red of its clover in her cheeks. I remember how the August breezes
played with her hair, flinging its golden curving strands abou