Young Lucretia and Other Stories Part 17

She took Jonathan out of his wagon and hushed him, and then they had a consultation as to what was best to be done. Mirandy related, with tearful breaks, the story of her well-filled bucket and its mysterious disappearance.

"Of course Cap'n Moseby was watching out there with his gun and took it," said Daniel.

It was finally agreed that they would all go in a body to Cap'n Moseby's, and try to recover Mirandy's bucket, that she might not have to face her mother without it. When they reached the Moseby house the doors were closed and the windows looked blank. They knocked as loudly as they dared, and there was not a sound in response. They looked at one another.

"S'pose he ain't at home?" whispered Harriet.

"Dan'l, you pound on the door again," said Eliza.

And Daniel pounded. Abijah pounded, too, and Eliza herself rattled away on one panel, with her freckled face screwed up, but n.o.body came.

"If he's there, he won't come to the door," said Daniel.

Suddenly the silence within the house was broken. Then came a volley of quick barks, and the children all fell back in a panic, and scurried into the road.

"He's in there," said Daniel; "an' he's been keeping the dog still, but he can't any longer."

"Just hear him!" whispered Harriet, with a shudder.

The dog was not only barking and growling, but leaping at the door.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE VISIT TO CAP'N MOSEBY'S"]

Mary Ann began to cry. "I'm going home," she sobbed. "S'pose that door should break;" and she started down the road.

Eliza grasped the handle of Jonathan's wagon. "I guess we might just as well go," she said. "I don't b'lieve he'll come to the door if we stand there a week. I don't know what mother'll say when she finds that good bucket's gone. I guess Mirandy'll catch it. An' when she finds out she's been stealing, too, I don't know what she will say."

The sorry procession started. Jonathan's wagon creaked; but Mirandy stood still, with a stubborn pout on her mouth, and her brows contracted over her blue eyes.

"Come along, Mirandy," called Eliza, with a foreboding voice.

But Mirandy stood still.

"Why don't you come?" Harriet said.

"I ain't coming," said Mirandy.

"What?"

"I ain't coming till I get my bucket."

Then the whole procession stopped, and reasoned and argued, but Mirandy was unmoved.

"What are you going to do? You can't get in," said Eliza.

"I'm going to sit on the door-step till Cap'n Moseby comes out,"

answered Mirandy.

"You'll sit there all day, likely's not," said Eliza. "What do you s'pose mother'll say? I'm a-going to tell her."

"She'll send me right back again if I don't stay," said Mirandy.

And there was some show of reason in what she said. It was indeed quite probable that Mrs. Josiah Thayer would send Mirandy straight back again to confess her sins and get the bucket.

"I don't know but mother would send her back," said Eliza; and Daniel nodded in a.s.sent.

"I'll stay with you," said Mary Ann, although she was still trembling with fear of the dog.

"Don't want anybody to stay," protested Mirandy.

Finally she sat on Cap'n Moseby's door-step, and watched them all straggle out of sight. The creak of Jonathan's wagon grew fainter and fainter, until she could hear it no longer. The dog was quiet now.

Mirandy sat up straight in front of the panelled door.

She waited and waited; the time went on, and it was high noon. She heard a dinner-horn in the distance. She wondered vaguely if Cap'n Moseby didn't have any dinner because he lived alone. She began to feel hungry herself. There was not a sound in the house. She wanted to cry, but she would not. She sat perfectly still. Once in a while she said over to herself the questions she had learned from the catechism, and she reflected much upon the two boys in the _Pilgrim's Progress_. She had eaten a few of the Cap'n's berries as she filled her bucket, and she wondered that they did not make her ill, as the fruit did the boys.

n.o.body pa.s.sed the house, the insects rasped in her ears, she thought her forlorn childish thoughts, and it was an hour after noon. She did not see a curtain trimmed with white b.a.l.l.s in a window overhead pulled cautiously to one side, and a grizzled head thrust out; but this happened several times.

About two o'clock there was a sudden puff of cool wind on her back; she glanced around, trembling, and there stood Cap'n Moseby in the open door, with his great black dog at his heels. His old face was the color of tanned leather, and full of severe furrows; his s.h.a.ggy brows frowned over sharp black eyes. He leaned upon a stout oak staff, for he had been lamed by a British musket-ball.

"Who's this?" he asked, in a grim voice.

Mirandy arose and stood about, and courtesied. She could not find her tongue yet.

"Hey?" said Cap'n Moseby.

"Mirandy Thayer," she answered then, in a shaking voice that had yet a touch of defiance in it.

"Mirandy Thayer, hey? Well, what do you want here, Mirandy Thayer?"

Mirandy dropped another courtesy. "My bucket."

"Your bucket! What have I got to do with your bucket?"

"I left it out in--your berry pasture."

"Out in my berry pasture! So you have been stealing my berries, hey?

What about your bucket?"

Mirandy's little hands clutched and opened at her sides, her face was quite pale, but she looked straight up at Cap'n Moseby. "You took it,"

said she.

Cap'n Moseby looked straight back at her, frowning terribly; then, to her great astonishment, his mouth twitched as if he were going to laugh.

"You think I took your bucket, and you have been waiting here all this time to get it back, hey?" said he.

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't you feel afraid that I'd set the dog on you, or shoot you out of the window with my gun?"