etter every minute as I went down the bank of an old creek
that had gone dry, and started up the other side toward the sugar camp
not far from the Big Woods. The bed was full of weeds and as I passed
through, away! went Something among them.

Beside the camp shed there was corded wood, and the first thing I knew,
I was on top of it. The next, my hand was on the note in my pocket.
My heart jumped until I could see my apron move, and my throat went all
stiff and dry. I gripped the note and waited.

Father believed God would take care of him. I was only a little girl
and needed help much more than a man; maybe God would take care of me.
There was nothing wrong in carrying a letter to the Fairy Princess. I
thought perhaps it would help if I should kneel on the top of the
woodpile and ask God to not let anything get me.

The more I thought about it, the less I felt like doing it, though,
because really you have no business to ask God to take care of you,
unless you KNOW you are doing right. This was right, but in my heart I
also knew that if Laddie had asked me, I would be shivering on top of
that cordwood on a hot August day, when it was wrong. On the whole, I
thought it would be more honest to leave God out of it, and take the
risk myself. That made me think of the Crusaders, and the little gold
trinket in father's chest till. There were four shells on it and each
one stood for a trip on foot or horseback to the Holy City when you had
to fight almost every step of the way. Those shells meant that my
father's people had gone four times, so he said; that, although it was
away far back, still each of us had a tiny share of the blood of the
Crusaders in our veins, and that it would make us brave and strong, and
whenever we were afraid, if we would think of them, we never could do a
cowardly thing or let any one else do one before us. He said any one
with Crusader blood had to be brave as Richard the Lion-hearted.
Thinking about that helped ever so much, so I gripped the note and
turned to take one last look at the house before I made a dash for the
gate that led into the Big Woods.

Beyond our land lay the farm of Jacob Hood, and Mrs. Hood always teased
me because Laddie had gone racing after her when I was born. She was
in the middle of Monday's washing, and the bluing settled in the rinse
water and stained her white clothes in streaks it took months to bleach
out. I always liked Sarah Hood for coming and dres