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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17887-h.zip b/17887-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec1577a --- /dev/null +++ b/17887-h.zip diff --git a/17887-h/17887-h.htm b/17887-h/17887-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ff1bb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/17887-h/17887-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1594 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> + <title>The Green Door</title> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Green Door, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Green Door + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: March 1, 2006 [EBook #17887] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN DOOR *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + +</pre> + +<h2 align="center">The Green Door</h2> +<h3 align="center">By<br> +Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman</h3> +<p align="center">Illustrated by<br> +Mary R. Bassett</p> +<p align="center">New York<br> +Dodd, Mead & Company<br> +1931</p> + +<p>Letitia lived in the same house where her grandmother and her +great-grandmother had lived and died. Her own parents died when she +was very young, and she had come there to live with her Great-aunt +Peggy. Her Great-aunt Peggy was her grandfather's sister, and was a +very old woman. However, she was very active and bright, and good +company for Letitia. That was fortunate, because there were no little +girls of Letitia's age nearer than a mile. The one maid-servant whom +Aunt Peggy kept was older than she, and had chronic rheumatism in the +right foot and left shoulder-blade, which affected her temper.</p> + +<p>Letitia's Great-aunt Peggy used to play grace-hoops with her, and +dominoes and checkers, and even dolls. Sometimes it was hard for +Letitia to realize that she was not another little girl. Her Aunt +Peggy was very kind to her and fond of her, and took care of her as +well as her own mother could have done. Letitia had all the care and +comforts and pleasant society that she really needed, but she was not +a very contented little girl. She was naturally rather idle, and her +Aunt Peggy, who was a wise old woman and believed thoroughly in the +proverb about Satan and idle hands, would keep her always busy at +something.</p> + +<p>If she were not playing, she had to sew or study or dust, or read +a stent in a story-book. Letitia had very nice story-books, but she +was not particularly fond of reading. She liked best of anything to +sit quite idle, and plan what she would like to do if she could have +her wish—and that her Aunt Peggy would not allow.</p> + +<p>Letitia was not satisfied with her dolls and little treasures. She +wanted new ones. She wanted fine clothes like one little girl, and +plenty of candy like another. When Letitia went to school she always +came home more dissatisfied. She wanted her room newly furnished, and +thought the furniture in the whole house very shabby. She disliked to +rise so early in the morning. She did not like to take a walk every +day, and besides everything else to make her discontented, there was +the little green door, which she must never open and pass +through.</p> + +<p>The house where Letitia lived was, of course, a very old one. It +had a roof, saggy and mossy, gray shingles in the walls, lilac bushes +half hiding the great windows, and a well-sweep in the yard. It was +quite a large house, and there were sheds and a great barn attached +to it, but they were all on the side. At the back of the house the +fields stretched away for acres, and there were no outbuildings. The +little green door was at the very back of the house, toward the +fields, in a room opening out of the kitchen. It was called the +cheese-room, because Letitia's grandmother, who had made cheeses, had +kept them there. She fancied she could smell cheese, though none had +been there for years, and it was used now only for a lumber-room. She +always sniffed hard for cheese, and then she eyed the little green +door with wonder and longing. It was a small green door, scarcely +higher than her head. A grown person could not have passed through +without stooping almost double. It was very narrow, too, and no one +who was not slender could have squeezed through it. In this door +there was a little black keyhole, with no key in it, but it was +always locked. Letitia knew that her Aunt Peggy kept the key in some +very safe place, but she would never show it to her, nor unlock the +door.</p> + +<p>“It is not best for you, my dear,” she always replied, +when Letitia teased her; and when Letitia begged only to know why she +could not go out of the door, she made the same reply, “It is +not best for you, my dear.”</p> + +<p>Sometimes, when Aunt Peggy was not by, Letitia would tease the old +maid-servant about the little green door, but she always seemed both +cross and stupid, and gave her no satisfaction. She even seemed to +think there was no little green door there; but that was nonsense, +because Letitia knew there was. Her curiosity grew greater and +greater; she took every chance she could get to steal into the +cheese-room and shake the door softly, but it was always locked. She +even tried to look through the key-hole, but she could see nothing. +One thing puzzled her more than all, and that was that the little +green door was on the inside of the house only, and not on the +outside. When Letitia went out in the field behind the house, there +was nothing but the blank wall to be seen. There was no sign of a +door in it. But the cheese-room was certainly the last room in the +house, and the little green door was in the rear wall. When Letitia +asked her Great-aunt Peggy to explain that, she only got the same +answer:</p> + +<p>“It is not best for you to know, my dear.”</p> + +<p>Letitia studied the little green door more than she studied her +lesson-books, but she never got any nearer the solution of the +mystery, until one Sunday morning in January. It was a very cold day, +and she had begged hard to stay home from church. Her Aunt Peggy and +the maid-servant, old as they were, were going, but Letitia shivered +and coughed a little and pleaded, and finally had her own way.</p> + +<p>“But you must sit down quietly,” charged Aunt Peggy, +“and you must learn your texts, to repeat to me when I get +home.”</p> + +<p>After Aunt Peggy and the old servant, in their great cloaks and +bonnets and fur tippets, had gone out of the yard and down the road, +Letitia sat quiet for fifteen minutes or so, hunting in the Bible for +easy texts; then suddenly she thought of the little green door, and +wondered, as she had done so many times before, if it could possibly +be opened. She laid down her Bible and stole out through the kitchen +to the cheese-room and tried the door. It was locked just as usual. +“Oh, dear!” sighed Letitia, and was ready to cry. It +seemed to her that this little green door was the very worst of all +her trials; that she would rather open that and see what was beyond +than have all the nice things she wanted and had to do without.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she thought of a little satin-wood box with a picture on +the lid which Aunt Peggy kept in her top bureau-drawer. Letitia had +often seen this box, but had never been allowed to open it.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if the key can be in that box,” said +she.</p> + +<p>She did not wait a minute. She was so naughty that she dared not +wait for fear she should remember that she ought to be good. She ran +out of the cheese-room, through the kitchen and sitting-room, to her +aunt's bedroom, and opened the bureau drawer, and then the satin-wood +box. It contained some bits of old lace, an old brooch, a yellow +letter, some other things which she did not examine, and, sure +enough, a little black key on a green ribbon.</p> + +<p>Letitia had not a doubt that it was the key of the little green +door. She trembled all over, she panted for breath, she was so +frightened, but she did not hesitate. She took the key and ran back +to the cheese-room. She did not stop to shut the satin-wood box or +the bureau drawer. She was so cold and her hands shook so that she +had some difficulty in fitting the key into the lock of the little +green door; but at last she succeeded, and turned it quite easily. +Then, for a second, she hesitated; she was almost afraid to open the +door; she put her hand on the latch and drew it back. It seemed to +her, too, that she heard strange, alarming sounds on the other side. +Finally, with a great effort of her will, she unlatched the little +green door, and flung it open and ran out.</p> + +<p>Then she gave a scream of surprise and terror, and stood still +staring. She did not dare stir nor breathe. She was not in the open +fields which she had always seen behind the house. She was in the +midst of a gloomy forest of trees so tall that she could just see the +wintry sky through their tops. She was hemmed in, too, by a wide, +hooping undergrowth of bushes and brambles, all stiff with snow. +There was something dreadful and ghastly about this forest, which had +the breathless odor of a cellar. And suddenly Letitia heard again +those strange sounds she had heard before coming out, and she knew +that they were savage whoops of Indians, just as she had read about +them in her history-book, and she saw also dark forms skulking about +behind the trees, as she had read.</p> + +<p>Then Letitia, wild with fright, turned to run back into the house +through the little green door, but there was no little green door, +and, more than that, there was no house. Nothing was to be seen but +the forest and a bridle-path leading through it.</p> + +<p>Letitia gasped. She could not believe her eyes. She ran out into +the path and down it a little way, but there was no house. The +dreadful yells sounded nearer. She looked wildly at the undergrowth +beside the path, wondering if she could hide under that, when +suddenly she heard a gun-shot and the tramp of a horse's feet. She +sprang aside just as a great horse, with a woman and two little girls +on his back, came plunging down the bridle-path and passed her. Then +there was another gun-shot, and a man, with a wide cape flying back +like black wings, came rushing down the path. Letitia gave a little +cry, and he heard her.</p> + +<p>“Who are you?” he cried breathlessly. Then, without +waiting for an answer, he caught her up and bore her along with him. +“Don't speak,” he panted in her ear. “The Indians +are upon us, but we're almost home!”</p> + +<p>Then all at once a log-house appeared beside the path, and someone +was holding the door ajar, and a white face was peering out. The door +was flung open wide as they came up, the man rushed in, set Letitia +down, shut the door with a crash, and shot some heavy bolts at top +and bottom.</p> + +<p>Letitia was so dazed that she scarcely knew what happened for the +next few minutes. She saw there a pale-faced woman and three girls, +one about her own age, two a little younger. She saw, to her great +amazement, the horse tied in the corner. She saw that the door was of +mighty thickness, and, moreover, hasped with iron and studded with +great iron nails, so that some rattling blows that were rained upon +it presently had no effect. She saw three guns set in loopholes in +the walls, and the man, the woman, and the girl of her own age firing +them, with great reports which made the house quake, while the +younger girls raced from one to the other with powder and bullets. +Still, she was not sure she saw right, it was all so strange. She +stood back in a corner, out of the way, and waited, trembling, and at +last the fierce yells outside died away, and the firing stopped.</p> + +<p><br>“They have fled,” said the woman with a thankful +sigh.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the man, “we are delivered once more +out of the hands of the enemy.”</p> + +<p>“We must not unbar the door or the shutters yet,” said +the woman anxiously. “I will get the supper by +candle-light.”</p> + +<p>Then Letitia realized what she had not done before, that all the +daylight was shut out of the house; that they had for light only one +tallow candle and a low hearth fire. It was very cold. Letitia began +to shiver with cold as well as fear.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the woman turned to her with motherly kindness and +curiosity. “Who is this little damsel whom you rescued, +husband?” said she.</p> + +<p>“She must speak for herself,” replied her husband, +smiling. “I thought at first she was neighbor Adams's +Phœbe, but I see she is not.”</p> + +<p>“What is your name, little girl?” asked the woman, +while the three little girls looked wonderingly at the new-comer.</p> + +<p>“Letitia Hopkins,” replied Letitia in a small, scared +voice.</p> + +<p>“Letitia Hopkins, did you say?” asked the woman +doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma'am.”</p> + +<p>They all stared at her, then at one another.</p> + +<p>“It is very strange,” said the woman finally, with a +puzzled, half-alarmed look. “Letitia Hopkins is my +name.”</p> + +<p>“And it is mine, too,” said the eldest girl.</p> + +<p>Letitia gave a great jump. There was something very strange about +this. Letitia Hopkins was a family name. Her grandmother, her +father's mother, had been Letitia Hopkins, and she had always heard +that the name could be traced back in the same order for generations, +as the Hopkinses had intermarried. She looked up, trembling, at the +man who had saved her from the Indians.</p> + +<p>“Will you please tell me your name, sir?” she +said.</p> + +<p>“John Hopkins,” replied the man, smiling kindly at +her.</p> + +<p>“Captain John Hopkins,” corrected his wife.</p> + +<p>Letitia gasped. That settled it. Captain John Hopkins was her +great-great-great-grandfather. Great-aunt Peggy had often told her +about him. He had been a notable man in his day, among the first +settlers, and many a story concerning him had come down to his +descendants. A queer miniature of him, in a little gilt frame, hung +in the best parlor, and Letitia had often looked at it. She had +thought from the first that there was something familiar about the +man's face, and now she recognized the likeness to the miniature.</p> + +<p>It seemed awful, and impossible, but the little green door led +into the past, and Letitia Hopkins was visiting her +great-great-great-grandfather and grandmother, +great-great-grandmother, and her great-great-aunts.</p> + +<p>Letitia looked up in the faces, all staring wonderingly at her, +and all of them had that familiar look, though she had no miniature +of the others. Suddenly she knew that it was a likeness to her own +face which she recognized, and it was as if she saw herself in a +looking-glass. She felt as if her head was turning round and round, +and presently her feet began to follow the motion of her head, then +strong arms caught her, or she would have fallen.</p> + +<p>When Letitia came to herself again, she was in a great feather +bed, in the unfinished loft of the log-house. The wind blew in her +face, a great star shone in her eyes. She thought at first she was +out of doors. Then she heard a kind but commanding voice repeating: +“Open your mouth,” and stared up wildly into her +great-great-great-grandmother's face, then around the strange little +garret, lighted with a wisp of rag in a pewter dish of tallow, and +the stars shining through the crack in the logs. Not a bit of +furniture was there in the room, besides the bed and an oak chest. +Some queer-looking garments hung about on pegs and swung in the +draughts of the wind. It must have been snowing outside, for little +piles of snow were scattered here and there about the room.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Letitia nearly choked.</p> + +<p>“Swallow it,” said Goodwife Hopkins. “You +swooned away, and it is good physic. It will soon make you +well.”</p> + +<p>Goodwife Hopkins had a kind and motherly way, but a way from which +there was no appeal. Letitia swallowed the bitter dose.</p> + +<p>“Now go to sleep,” ordered Goodwife Hopkins.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What's that?” she whispered fearfully.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“She's afraid of a catamount,” said she.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>This time she did not need to wake her great-great-grandmother, +who sat straight up in bed at the first sound.</p> + +<p>“What's that?” whispered Letitia.</p> + +<p>“Hush!” replied the other. “Injuns!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Go to sleep now,” said she. “They've gone +away.”</p> + +<p>But Letitia was weeping with fright. “I can't go to +sleep,” she sobbed. “I'm afraid they'll come +again.”</p> + +<p>“Very likely they will,” replied the other Letitia +coolly. “They come 'most every night.”</p> + +<p>The little great-great-aunt Phyllis laughed again. “She +can't go to sleep because she heard Injuns,” she tittered.</p> + +<p>“Hush,” said her sister Letitia, “she'll get +accustomed to them in time.”</p> + +<p>But poor Letitia slept no more till four o'clock. Then she had +just fallen into a sweet doze when she was pulled out of bed.</p> + +<p>“Come, come,” said her great-great-great-grandmother, +Goodwife Hopkins, “we can have no lazy damsels here.”</p> + +<p>Letitia found that her bedfellows were up and dressed and +downstairs. She heard a queer buzzing sound from below, as she stood +in her bare feet on the icy floor and gazed about her, dizzy with +sleep.</p> + +<p>“Hasten and dress yourself,” said Goodwife Hopkins. +“Here are some of Letitia's garments I have laid out for you. +Those which you wore here I have put away in the chest. They are too +gay, and do not befit a sober, God-fearing damsel.”</p> + +<p>With that, Goodwife Hopkins descended to the room below, and +Letitia dressed herself. It did not take her long. There was not much +to put on beside a coarse wool petticoat and a straight little wool +gown, rough yarn stockings, and such shoes as she had never seen.</p> + +<p>“I couldn't run from Injuns in these,” thought Letitia +miserably. When she got downstairs she discovered what the buzzing +noise was. Her great-great-grandmother was spinning. Her +great-great-aunt Candace was knitting, and little Phyllis was +scouring the hearth. Goodwife Hopkins was preparing breakfast.</p> + +<p>“Go to the other wheel,” said she to Letitia, +“and spin until the porridge is done. We can have no idle hands +here.”</p> + +<p>Letitia looked helplessly at a great spinning-wheel in the corner, +then at her great-great-great-grandmother.</p> + +<p>“I don't know how,” she faltered.</p> + +<p>Then all the great-grandmothers and the aunts cried out with +astonishment.</p> + +<p>“She doesn't know how to spin!” they said to one +another.</p> + +<p>Letitia felt dreadfully ashamed.</p> + +<p>“You must have been strangely brought up,” said +Goodwife Hopkins. “Well, take this stocking and round out the +toe. There will be just about time enough for that before +breakfast.”</p> + +<p>“I don't know how to knit,” stammered Letitia.</p> + +<p>Then there was another cry of astonishment. Goodwife Hopkins cast +about her for another task for this ignorant guest.</p> + +<p>“Explain the doctrine of predestination,” said she +suddenly.</p> + +<p>Letitia jumped up and stared at her with scared eyes.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know what predestination is?” demanded +Goodwife Hopkins.</p> + +<p>“No, ma'am,” half sobbed Letitia.</p> + +<p>Her great-great-grandmother and her great-great-aunts made shocked +exclamations, and her great-great-great-grandmother looked at her +with horror. “You have been brought up as one of the +heathen,” said she. Then she produced a small book, and Letitia +was bidden to seat herself upon a stool and learn the doctrine of +predestination before breakfast.</p> + +<p>The kitchen was lighted only by one tallow candle and the +firelight, for it was still far from dawn. Letitia drew her little +stool close to the hearth, and bent anxiously over the fire-lit page. +She committed to memory easily, and repeated the text like a +frightened parrot when she was called upon.</p> + +<p>“The child has good parts, though she is woefully +ignorant,” said Goodwife Hopkins aside to her husband. +“It shall be my care to instruct her.”</p> + +<p>Letitia, having completed her task, was given her breakfast. It +was only a portion of corn-meal porridge in a pewter plate. She had +never had such a strange breakfast in her life, and she did not like +corn-meal. She sat with it untasted before her.</p> + +<p>“Why don't you eat?” asked her +great-great-great-grandmother severely.</p> + +<p>“I—don't—like—it,” faltered +Letitia.</p> + +<p>If possible, they were all more shocked by that than they had been +by her ignorance.</p> + +<p>“She doesn't like the good porridge,” the little +great-great-aunts said to each other.</p> + +<p>“Eat the porridge,” commanded Captain John Hopkins +sternly, when he had gotten over his surprise.</p> + +<p>Letitia ate the porridge, every grain of it. After breakfast the +serious work of the day began. Letitia had never known anything like +it. She felt like a baby who had just come into a new world. She was +ignorant of everything that these strange relatives knew. It made no +difference that she knew some things which they did not, some +advanced things. She could, for instance, crochet, if she could not +knit. She could repeat the multiplication-table, if she did not know +the doctrine of predestination; she had also all the States of the +Union by heart. But advanced knowledge is not of as much value in the +past as past knowledge in the future. She could not crochet, because +there was no crochet needles; there were no States of the Union; and +it seemed doubtful if there was a multiplication-table, there was so +little to multiply.</p> + +<p>So Letitia had set herself to acquiring the wisdom of her +ancestors. She learned to card, and hetchel, and spin and weave. She +learned to dye cloth, and make coarse garments, even for her +great-great-great-grandfather, Captain John Hopkins. She knitted yarn +stockings, she scoured brass and pewter, and, more than all, she +learned the entire catechism. Letitia had never really known what +work was. From long before dawn until long after dark, she toiled. +She was not allowed to spend one idle moment. She had no chance to +steal out and search for the little green door, even had she not been +so afraid of wild beasts and Indians.</p> + +<p>She never went out of the house except on the Sabbath day. Then, +in fair or foul weather, they all went to meeting, ten miles through +the dense forest. Captain John Hopkins strode ahead, his gun over his +shoulder. Goodwife Hopkins rode the gray horse, and the girls rode by +turns, two at a time, clinging to the pillion at her back. Letitia +was never allowed to wear her own pretty plain dress, with the velvet +collar, even to meeting.</p> + +<p>“It would create a scandal in the sanctuary,” said +Goodwife Hopkins. So Letitia went always in the queer little coarse +and scanty gown, which seemed to her more like a bag than anything +else; and for outside wraps she had—of all things—a +homespun blanket pinned over her head. Her great-great-grandmother +and her great-great-aunts were all fitted out in a similar fashion. +Goodwife Hopkins, however, had a great wadded hood and a fine red +cloak.</p> + +<p>There was never any fire in the meeting-house, and the services +lasted all day, with a short recess at noon, during which they went +into a neighboring house, sat round the fire, warmed their half +frozen feet, and ate cold corn-cakes and pan-cakes for luncheon. +There were no pews in the meeting-house, nothing but hard benches +without backs. If Letitia fidgetted, or fell asleep, the tithing-men +rapped her. Letitia would never have been allowed to stay away from +meeting, had she begged to do so, but she never did. She was afraid +to stay alone in the house because of Indians.</p> + +<p>Quite often there was a rumor of hostile Indians in the +neighborhood, and twice there were attacks. Letitia learned to load +the guns and hand the powder and bullets.</p> + +<p>She grew more and more homesick as the days went on. They were all +kind to her, and she became fond of them, especially of the +great-great-grandmother of her own age, and the little +great-great-aunts, but they seldom had any girlish sports together. +Goodwife Hopkins kept them too busily at work. Once in a while, as a +special treat, they were allowed to play bean-porridge-hot for +fifteen minutes. They were not allowed to talk after they went to +bed, and there was little opportunity for girlish confidences.</p> + +<p>However, there came a day at last when Captain Hopkins and his +wife were called away to visit a sick neighbor, some twelve miles +distant, and the four girls were left in charge of the house. At +seven o'clock the two younger went to bed, and Letitia and her +great-great-grandmother remained up to wait for the return of their +elders, as they had been instructed. Then it was that the little +great-great-grandmother showed Letitia her treasures. She had only +two, and was not often allowed to look at them, lest they wean her +heart away from more serious things. They were kept in a secret +drawer of the great chest for safety, and were nothing but a little +silver snuff-box with a picture on the top, and a little flat glass +bottle, about an inch and a half long.</p> + +<p>“The box belonged to my grandfather, and the bottle to his +mother. I have them because I am the eldest, but I must not set my +heart on them unduly,” said Letitia's +great-great-grandmother.</p> + +<p>Letitia tried to count how many “greats” belonged to +the ancestors who had first owned these treasures, but it made her +dizzy. She had never told the story of the little green door to any +of them. She had been afraid to, knowing how shocked they would be at +her disobedience. Now, however, when the treasure was replaced, she +was moved in confidence, and told her great-great-grandmother the +story.</p> + +<p>“That is very strange,” said her +great-great-grandmother, when Letitia had finished. “We have a +little green door, too; only ours is on the outside of the house, in +the north wall. There's a spruce tree growing close up against it +that hides it, but it is there. Our parents have forbidden us to open +it, too, and we have never disobeyed.”</p> + +<p>She said the last with something of an air of superior virtue. +Letitia felt terribly ashamed.</p> + +<p>“Is there any key to your little green door?” she +asked meekly.</p> + +<p>For answer her great-great-grandmother opened the secret drawer of +the chest again, and pulled out a key with a green ribbon in it, the +very counterpart of the one in the satin-wood box.</p> + +<p>Letitia looked at it wistfully.</p> + +<p>“I should never think of disobeying my parents, and opening +the little green door,” remarked her great-great-grandmother, +as she put back the key in the drawer. “I should think +something dreadful would happen to me. I have heard it whispered that +the door opened into the future. It would be dreadful to be all alone +in the future, without one's kins-folk.”</p> + +<p>“There may not be any Indians or catamounts there,” +ventured Letitia.</p> + +<p>“There might be something a great deal worse,” +returned her great-great-grandmother severely.</p> + +<p>After that there was silence between the two, and possibly also a +little coldness. Letitia knitted and her great-great-grandmother +knitted. Letitia also thought shrewdly. She had very little doubt +that the key which she had just been shown might unlock another +little green door, and admit her to her past which was her ancestors' +future, but she realized that it was beyond her courage, even if she +had the opportunity, to take it, and use it provided she could find +the second little green door. She had been so frightfully punished +for disobedience, that she dared not risk a second attempt. Then too +how could she tell whether the second little green door would admit +her to her grandmother's cheese-room? She felt so dizzy over what had +happened, that she was not even sure that two and two made four, and +b-o-y spelt boy, although she had mastered such easy facts long ago. +Letitia had arrived at the point wherein she did not know what she +knew, and therefore, she resolved that she would not use that other +little key with the green ribbon, if she had a chance. She shivered +at the possibilities which it might involve. Suppose she were to open +the second little green door and be precipitated head first into a +future far from the one which had merged into the past, and be more +at a loss than now. She might find the conditions of life even more +impossible than in her great-great-great-grandfather's log cabin with +hostile Indians about. It might, as her great-great-grandmother +Letitia had said, be much worse. So she knitted soberly, and the +other Letitia knitted, and neither spoke, and there was not a sound +except the crackling of the hearth fire and bubbling of water in a +large iron pot which swung from the crane, until suddenly there was a +frantic pounding at the door, and a sound as if somebody were hurled +against it.</p> + +<p>Both Letitias started to their feet. Letitia turned pale, but her +great-great-grandmother Letitia looked as usual. She approached the +door, and spoke quite coolly. “Who may be without?” said +she.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There came another pound on the door, and a boy's voice cried out +desperately. “It's me, let me in.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Are the Injuns after you?” inquired +Great-great-grandmother Letitia.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You rake the ashes over the fire, while I let him +in,” ordered the great-great-grandmother Letitia, peremptorily, +and Letitia obeyed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>With that the boy brandished a wicked-looking knife.</p> + +<p>“You might have done something with that,” remarked +Great-great-grandmother Letitia, and her voice was somewhat +scornful.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>The boy straightened himself. He saw the other Letitia and his +blue eyes were full of admiration and bravery. “Of course I +know how,” said he. “Haven't I killed ten wolves and +aren't their heads nailed to the outside of the +meeting-house?”</p> + +<p>Letitia was quite sure that the boy lied, but she knew that he +lied to please her, and she liked him for it.</p> + +<p>Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed. “You are the +greatest braggart in the Precinct,” said she. “Nary a +wolf have you killed, and you ran because you heard a wild cat or a +bear. Where are the Injuns, pray?”</p> + +<p>“I know there were Injuns after me,” said the boy +earnestly, “but perhaps I frightened them away. I brandished my +knife as I ran.”</p> + +<p>Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed again, but she looked +anxious. “I hope,” said she, “that father and +mother will not be molested on their way home.”</p> + +<p>“Give me a musket,” declared the boy bravely, +“and I will guard the path.”</p> + +<p>“You!” returned Great-great-grandmother Letitia +scornfully. “You are naught but a child.”</p> + +<p>“I can handle a musket as well as a man,” said +Josephus Peabody with such a straightening of his small back that it +seemed positively alarming, and another glance at Letitia, who +returned it. She thought him a very pretty boy, and quite brave, +offering to guard the path all alone, although he was so young, not +much older than she was.</p> + +<p>Great-great-grandmother Letitia took up a musket decidedly. +“Very well,” said she, “if you can handle a musket +like a man, here be the chance. Take this musket, and I will take +one, and Letitia will take one, and we will leave the door ajar, so +we can dash in if hard-pressed, and we will keep watch lest father +and mother be attacked unawares at the threshold.”</p> + +<p>Letitia was horribly afraid, but she had learned in the Spartan +household of her ancestors, to be more afraid of fear than of +anything else, so she pulled a blanket over her head and shouldered a +musket, and, after the elder Letitia had unbarred and unbolted the +door, they all stepped out into the night, armed and ready to guard +the house.</p> + +<p>“Candace can handle a musket and so can little Phyllis at a +pinch,” said the elder Letitia thoughtfully, “but I for +one am thinking that your Injuns are catamounts, Josephus +Peabody.”</p> + +<p>“They are Injuns,” said the boy stoutly, peering out +into the gloom.</p> + +<p>They were in perfect darkness, for it was a cloudy night, and not +a ray came from the house-door.</p> + +<p>“For what reason were you abroad to-night?” inquired +the elder in what Letitia considered a disagreeably patronizing tone +as addressed to such a pretty brave little boy.</p> + +<p>“I went to visit my rabbit traps,” replied the boy, +but his voice was slightly hesitant.</p> + +<p>“In this darkness?”</p> + +<p>“I had a pine knot, but I flung it away when I heard the +noises.”</p> + +<p>“A pine knot, and Injuns around, and you with naught but a +scalping knife? 'Tis not bravery but tomfoolery,” said the +elder Letitia. “I'll warrant you stole out without the +knowledge of Goodman Cephas Holbrook and Mistress Holbrook, and they +having taken you in as they did and given you food and shelter, with +nine of their own to care for, and not knowing of a certainty who you +might be.”</p> + +<p>Letitia felt sure that the boy hung his head in the darkness. He +mumbled something incoherent.</p> + +<p>“It was out of the window in the lean-to you got, and ran +away,” declared the elder Letitia severely. “You are not +a boy to be trusted. You can remain here with Letitia, and I will +stand guard a little way down the path; and do not speak above a +whisper, although I be sure there be none but catamounts to +hear.”</p> + +<p>With that, Great-great-grandmother Letitia, musket over shoulder, +moved down the path and stood quite concealed as if by a vast cloak +of night, an alert vigilant young figure with the hot blood of her +time leaping in her veins, and the shrewd brain of her time alive to +everything which might stir that darkness with sound or light.</p> + +<p>“Who are you?” whispered Letitia to the boy.</p> + +<p>“I am Josephus Peabody, but I was always called Joe till I +came here,” the boy whispered back.</p> + +<p>Letitia pondered. The name sounded very familiar to her, just as +the boy's face had looked. Then suddenly she remembered. “When +I was a little girl,” she whispered, “not more than +seven—I am going on ten now—I knew a little boy named Joe +Peabody, and he was visiting his grandmother, Mrs. Joe Peabody. She +lives about half a mile from my Aunt Peggy's around the corner of the +road. It is a big white house next to the graveyard.”</p> + +<p>“That was me,” said the boy. “At least,” +he added in rather a dazed and hopeless tone, “I suppose it +was, and I guess I remember you too. You had curls, and we went +coasting down that long hill near Grandmother's together.”</p> + +<p>“Seems to me we did,” said Letitia, and her own tone +was dazed and hopeless.</p> + +<p>“Since I have been here,” whispered the boy, “I +haven't been exactly sure who I was and that is the truth. The folks +where I am staying are real good. They go to meeting all day Sunday +and they don't work Saturday nights, but I can't understand it. We +have to make all the things I have seen already made, for one +thing.”</p> + +<p>Letitia nodded in the dark.</p> + +<p>“That is the way here,” said she.</p> + +<p>“And Mr. Cephas Holbrook has just the name that my +great-great-great-uncle on my mother's side had,” said the boy, +in a whisper so puzzled that it was fairly agonized. +“Grandmother has told me about him. He had a battle with six +Injuns and killed them all himself, and this Mr. Cephas Holbrook has +done just that same thing. And he killed ten wolves and nailed their +heads to the meeting-house. Say,” the boy continued +confidentially, “those were the heads I meant, you +know.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I know,” whispered Letitia. “I +wouldn't speak to you if you had done such awful things.”</p> + +<p>“I didn't, honestly,” said Josephus Peabody. +“Where did you come from to-night?” asked Letitia.</p> + +<p>“Why, I came from Mr. Cephas Holbrook's. It's about ten +miles away on that side.” The boy pointed in the dark.</p> + +<p>“You came all that way?”</p> + +<p>“I had to if I came at all. I don't get any time to see my +traps day-times. I have to work. I have to chop wood, and make wooden +pegs. I never saw wooden pegs, till—till I came here. I have to +work all day. Eliphalet Holbrook, he's a boy about my size, got out +of the window one night, when it was moonlight, and we set traps, and +we haven't either of us had a chance to look at them and see if we've +caught anything; but to-night, I had a cold and they sent me to bed +early and I whispered to Eliphalet, that I'd see those traps; and I +had a pine knot, and I run and run, but I couldn't find the +traps.”</p> + +<p>“You didn't run ten miles?”</p> + +<p>“No, the traps were set only about three miles from where we +live and I rather think I lost my way. Then I heard the +Injuns—say, I used to call them Indians.”</p> + +<p>“So did I,” said Letitia.</p> + +<p>“They say Injuns here. Then I heard them, and I run the rest +of the way, and then I saw your light. Are you one of Captain John +Hopkins' children?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know. I don't think I am,” replied Letitia +miserably.</p> + +<p>“What is your name?”</p> + +<p>“Letitia Hopkins.”</p> + +<p>“Then you must be.”</p> + +<p>“I don't believe I am.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Letitia felt a hard little boy-hand clutch hers in the +dark. The boy's voice whispered forcibly in her ear. +“Say,” said the voice, “did you—did you get +here, I wonder, in some queer way just as I did?”</p> + +<p>Letitia whispered forcibly, “Through a little green door in +my Great-aunt Peggy's cheese-room.”</p> + +<p>“Had she told you never to open it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but she and Hannah left me alone when they went to +meeting and I found the key in a little box, and the key had a green +ribbon and it unlocked the door, and I was in the woods around here, +and Aunt Peggy's house was gone and everything.”</p> + +<p>“How long have you been here?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know. It must have been a long time, for I have +done so much work, and learned to do so much that I had started with +all done.”</p> + +<p>“It is just the same with me,” whispered the boy.</p> + +<p>Letitia shivered, half with joy, half with horror. “Did you +come through a little green door?”</p> + +<p>“No, I came through a book.”</p> + +<p>Letitia jumped. “A book!” she repeated feebly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it was a book. I didn't know it at first. I thought it +was just a wooden box up in Grandmother Peabody's garret, and it was +always locked, and Grandmother Peabody said I was never to ask any +questions about it, and never to try to open it. I expect she was +afraid I might try to pick the lock. Then I began to suspect that it +was a book, and then I found the key. I stayed at home from meeting +just like you, and I had a cold. My father had died, and I had come +to live with Grandmother Peabody.”</p> + +<p>“I remember now Aunt Peggy told Hannah about it,” +whispered Letitia with sudden remembrance.</p> + +<p>“I don't know how long ago it was, for I have done so much +work making wooden nails, when all the nails I had ever seen were +bought at a shop, and such things, that it seems an awful long time; +but I was left alone just the way you were, and I found the key to +that book that looked like a wooden box. It was in a little drawer of +Grandmother's secretary.”</p> + +<p>“Did it have a green ribbon on it?” whispered Letitia +breathlessly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it did, honest, a green ribbon, and I went up in the +garret and I unlocked that book, and first thing I knew I was in the +woods around the house where I live now, and a wolf was chasing me, +and Mr. Cephas Holbrook shot him, and took me home.”</p> + +<p>Letitia sighed. “Do you like it here?” she +whispered.</p> + +<p>“I think it is awful, don't you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do, but I don't dare say so.”</p> + +<p>“I do,” said Josephus Peabody. “I ain't afraid +of anything that ain't bigger and stronger than I am, honest, and I +have killed one wolf my own self. That is true, but I didn't kill the +others. I told that because that other girl was turning up her nose +so at me. But I don't like to live here at all. I used to complain +when I was Joe instead of Josephus, and had to learn lessons, and do +errands. But this is worse than anything I ever dreamed about when I +had the nightmare.”</p> + +<p>“That is the way I feel,” said Letitia soberly. +“I used to complain, but I wouldn't now. I've been living back +of complaints too long.”</p> + +<p>“So have I,” said Josephus. Then he added, “Say, +I'm awful glad I got scared, and ran here, and found you.”</p> + +<p>“So am I.”</p> + +<p>“There's something I want to tell you that's very +queer,” whispered Josephus. “There is a wooden book just +like the one in Mr. Holbrook's house under the eaves in the lean-to, +and I know where the key is. It is in the chest in the kitchen, in +the till hidden under a lot of linen night-caps.”</p> + +<p>“Has it a green ribbon on it?” whispered Letitia +fearfully.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it has. Say, don't you ever think you'd like to run +away from here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I'm afraid I might get into something +worse.”</p> + +<p>“That's the way I feel. Otherwise we might both watch our +chance and go through that wooden book in our lean-to, but we might +find ourselves in Grandmother Peabody's garret where I came from, and +we might find ourselves in a place full of worse wild animals than +there are here, and things worse than Injuns. And we might have to +learn more than we've learned here, and work harder, and I don't feel +as if I could stand that.”</p> + +<p>“I don't either.” Then Letitia whispered very +violently, “There is a little green door here, and I know where +the key is, with a green ribbon, but I am afraid.”</p> + +<p>“That's very funny—just like me,” said +Josephus.</p> + +<p>“Well, I may make up my mind to take the chance anyhow, and +if I do you had better. Say, if you hear I've gone, you just go +through your little green door, will you?”</p> + +<p>“Maybe,” whispered Letitia doubtfully, and then her +Great-great-grandmother Letitia came back. “There isn't a sign +of an Injun here,” said she, “and I am 'most froze. I'm +going to start the fire, and you boy, you had better come too. You +can sleep on the floor by the fire to-night and go home in the +morning. Father and mother are coming. I heard their horses. Mother's +is a little lame, and favors one foot, and I know. They're right +here, and they'll be cold, and I've got to start up the +fire.”</p> + +<p>“I'll help,” cried Josephus.</p> + +<p>“You'd better,” said the elder Letitia; “if I +had a brother as big as you, he'd have to work instead of hunting +rabbits.”</p> + +<p>Josephus flew about the kitchen dragging heavy logs, and poking +the fire, and Letitia quite admired him, but her +great-great-grandmother simply scolded. “You are a most unhandy +boy,” said she. “You can have had little training in +making hearth fires.”</p> + +<p>However, the flames leaped high into the great chimney mouth, when +Captain John Hopkins and his wife entered.</p> + +<p>“How pleasant it is, and how thankful we ought to be to have +a good warm room to enter,” said Great-great-great-grandmother +Letitia Hopkins, although she looked very grave. The sick neighbor +was very sick unto death, it was feared, and she was a good woman and +a good neighbor.</p> + +<p>Josephus Peabody stayed all night and slept wrapped up in a +homespun blanket beside the fire, but the next morning it was hardly +daylight before Goodman Cephas Holbrook came for him. Cephas Holbrook +was a very stern man, and he believed in the rod. Before Josephus +left he had just one chance and he improved it. It was while Mr. +Holbrook was partaking of a glass of something warm and spicy which +Great-great-great-grandmother Letitia Hopkins mixed for him. It was a +cordial of her own compounding and a good thing for the stomach on a +bitter morning, and this morning was very bitter.</p> + +<p>Josephus whispered to Letitia: “He will give me an awful +licking when we get home, and I am not afraid, honest. But if I can +get hold of that key, I mean to go into that book this very +night.”</p> + +<p>Letitia looked frightened.</p> + +<p>“You had better—” began Josephus, and he nodded +meaningly.</p> + +<p>Letitia knew what he meant, but she had no chance to reply, for +Mr. Holbrook had finished his cordial and had Josephus by the hand, +and was jerking him rather forcibly out of the door.</p> + +<p>“A froward child, I fear,” remarked Captain John +Hopkins when they had gone.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” assented his wife.</p> + +<p>“He is afraid of Injuns when there are none, too,” +said Great-great-grandmother Letitia.</p> + +<p>“That is an evil thing, too,” said her father. +“It is distrusting the Almighty to fear where is nothing to +fear. A froward child, and I trust that Goodman Holbrook will not +spare the rod.”</p> + +<p>Letitia was very sure that he would not, and she pitied poor +Josephus Peabody with all her heart. She also pitied herself more +than usual that day, for the cold was stinging, and she was put to +hard tasks, and she felt forlorn at the thought that her little +brother in the hardships of the Past might that very night strive to +make his escape. Gradually her own resolve grew. She was horribly +afraid, but she was also horribly homesick, and homesickness will +urge to desperate deeds.</p> + +<p>That night, also, Captain John Hopkins and his wife went to visit +the sick neighbor, and, after the younger sisters were in bed, +Letitia was left alone with her great-great-grandmother, who was +sleepy. Letitia did not talk; she knitted, with a shrewd eye upon the +elder Letitia, who presently fell fast asleep. Then Letitia rose +softly, and laid down her knitting work. It might be her chance for +nobody knew how long, and Josephus might even now be entering his +book. She pulled off her shoes, tiptoed in her thick yarn stockings +up to the loft, got her own clothes out of the chest, and put them +on. The little great-great-aunts did not stir. Letitia blew a kiss to +them. Then she tiptoed down, got the key out of the secret drawer, +blew another farewell kiss to her sleeping great-great-grandmother +and was out of the house.</p> + +<p>It was broad moonlight outside. She ran around to the north side +of the house, and there was the little green door hidden under the +low branches of the spruce tree. Letitia gave a sob of fear and +thankfulness. She fitted the key in the lock, turned it, opened the +door, and there she was back in her great-aunt's cheese-room.</p> + +<p>She shut the door hard, locked it, and carried the key back to its +place in the satin-wood box. Then she looked out of the window, and +there was her great-aunt Peggy, and the old maid-servant just coming +home from meeting.</p> + +<p>Letitia confessed what she had done, and her aunt listened +gravely. Letitia did not say anything about Josephus Peabody.</p> + +<p>She was not sure that he had made his escape, and if he had his +grandmother might punish him, and she considered that he had probably +suffered enough at the hands of Goodman Cephas Holbrook.</p> + +<p>Letitia's aunt listened gravely. “You were +disobedient,” said she when Letitia had finished, “but I +think your disobediance has brought its own punishment, and I hope +now that you will be more contented.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Aunt Peggy,” sobbed Letitia, “everything +I've got is so beautiful, and I love to study and crochet and go to +church.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it was a hard lesson to learn, and I hoped to spare +you from it, but perhaps it was for the best,” said her +great-aunt Peggy.</p> + +<p>“I was there a whole winter,” said Letitia, “but +when I got back you were just coming home from church.”</p> + +<p>“It doesn't take as long to visit the past as it did to live +in it,” replied her aunt. Then she sent Letitia to her room for +the satin-wood box, and, when she had brought it, took out of it a +little parcel, neatly folded in white paper, tied with a green +ribbon. “Open it,” said she.</p> + +<p>Letitia untied the green ribbon and unfolded the paper, and there +was the little silver snuff-box which had been the treasure of the +great-great-grandmother, Letitia Hopkins. She raised the lid, and +there was also the little glass bottle.</p> + +<p>They had a very nice dinner that day, and afterward had settled +down for a quiet afternoon, Letitia feeling very happy, when there +was a jingle of sleigh bells, and Aunt Peggy cried out. “Why, I +declare,” said she, “if there isn't Mrs. Joe Peabody with +her little grandson driving over this cold day. She is a very smart +old lady.”</p> + +<p>Then Aunt Peggy hurried out to tell Hannah, the maid servant, to +have some tea, and hot biscuits, and quince preserves, and pound +cakes served before the guests left, and Hannah with a shawl over her +head, went out and backed the old lady's horse into the barn, and +Mrs. Joe Peabody and her grandson entered.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Joe Peabody was a very pretty old lady when she was unwrapped +from her black cloak and two shawls and fitch tippet and pumpkin +hood, and seated in the big chair by the fire. Her white hair hung on +either side of her face in rows of beautiful curls, and her eyes were +blue as turquoises. Her grandson stood by her side, and she had a +loving arm around him. “You remember my grandson Joe, don't +you, dear?” she said to Letitia. “Two years ago you used +to go coasting together.”</p> + +<p>“Yes'm,” said Letitia. She and Joe glanced at each +other, and their eyes were very big, and their cheeks very red.</p> + +<p>Later on when the tea and biscuits and preserves and pound cake +were served, Joe and Letitia got a chance for a word. “You got +back alright through the little green door,” whispered Joe.</p> + +<p>Letitia nodded.</p> + +<p>“And I came right through that book into grandma's +garret,” whispered Joe, “and I told grandma all about it, +and she only laughed and hugged me and said some laws were made to be +broken for the good of the breakers. But I am glad to be back here, +aren't you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” gasped Letitia fervently, and she took a bite of +pound cake.</p> + +<p>“This would have been corn meal mush there,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“And I should have got another whipping after I got out of +the book like the one I had before I got in,” said Joe.</p> + +<p>They both ate pound cake and looked happily at each other. +“I think,” said Joe presently, “that it would be +better not to tell the other boys and girls about all this. +Grandmother thinks so.”</p> + +<p>“Aunt Peggy does, too,” said Letitia. “They +might think we made it all up, it is so queer. No, we will never tell +anybody as long as we live.”</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Green Door, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN DOOR *** + +***** This file should be named 17887-h.htm or 17887-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/8/17887/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: March 1, 2006 [EBook #17887] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN DOOR *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + + +The Green Door + +By + +Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman + + +Illustrated by +Mary R. Bassett + + +New York +Dodd, Mead & Company +1931 + + + + +Letitia lived in the same house where her grandmother and her +great-grandmother had lived and died. Her own parents died when she +was very young, and she had come there to live with her Great-aunt +Peggy. Her Great-aunt Peggy was her grandfather's sister, and was a +very old woman. However, she was very active and bright, and good +company for Letitia. That was fortunate, because there were no little +girls of Letitia's age nearer than a mile. The one maid-servant whom +Aunt Peggy kept was older than she, and had chronic rheumatism in the +right foot and left shoulder-blade, which affected her temper. + +Letitia's Great-aunt Peggy used to play grace-hoops with her, and +dominoes and checkers, and even dolls. Sometimes it was hard for +Letitia to realize that she was not another little girl. Her Aunt +Peggy was very kind to her and fond of her, and took care of her as +well as her own mother could have done. Letitia had all the care and +comforts and pleasant society that she really needed, but she was not +a very contented little girl. She was naturally rather idle, and her +Aunt Peggy, who was a wise old woman and believed thoroughly in the +proverb about Satan and idle hands, would keep her always busy at +something. + +If she were not playing, she had to sew or study or dust, or read a +stent in a story-book. Letitia had very nice story-books, but she was +not particularly fond of reading. She liked best of anything to sit +quite idle, and plan what she would like to do if she could have her +wish--and that her Aunt Peggy would not allow. + +Letitia was not satisfied with her dolls and little treasures. She +wanted new ones. She wanted fine clothes like one little girl, and +plenty of candy like another. When Letitia went to school she always +came home more dissatisfied. She wanted her room newly furnished, and +thought the furniture in the whole house very shabby. She disliked to +rise so early in the morning. She did not like to take a walk every +day, and besides everything else to make her discontented, there was +the little green door, which she must never open and pass through. + +The house where Letitia lived was, of course, a very old one. It had +a roof, saggy and mossy, gray shingles in the walls, lilac bushes +half hiding the great windows, and a well-sweep in the yard. It was +quite a large house, and there were sheds and a great barn attached +to it, but they were all on the side. At the back of the house the +fields stretched away for acres, and there were no outbuildings. The +little green door was at the very back of the house, toward the +fields, in a room opening out of the kitchen. It was called the +cheese-room, because Letitia's grandmother, who had made cheeses, had +kept them there. She fancied she could smell cheese, though none had +been there for years, and it was used now only for a lumber-room. She +always sniffed hard for cheese, and then she eyed the little green +door with wonder and longing. It was a small green door, scarcely +higher than her head. A grown person could not have passed through +without stooping almost double. It was very narrow, too, and no one +who was not slender could have squeezed through it. In this door +there was a little black keyhole, with no key in it, but it was +always locked. Letitia knew that her Aunt Peggy kept the key in some +very safe place, but she would never show it to her, nor unlock the +door. + +"It is not best for you, my dear," she always replied, when Letitia +teased her; and when Letitia begged only to know why she could not go +out of the door, she made the same reply, "It is not best for you, my +dear." + +Sometimes, when Aunt Peggy was not by, Letitia would tease the old +maid-servant about the little green door, but she always seemed both +cross and stupid, and gave her no satisfaction. She even seemed to +think there was no little green door there; but that was nonsense, +because Letitia knew there was. Her curiosity grew greater and +greater; she took every chance she could get to steal into the +cheese-room and shake the door softly, but it was always locked. She +even tried to look through the key-hole, but she could see nothing. +One thing puzzled her more than all, and that was that the little +green door was on the inside of the house only, and not on the +outside. When Letitia went out in the field behind the house, there +was nothing but the blank wall to be seen. There was no sign of a +door in it. But the cheese-room was certainly the last room in the +house, and the little green door was in the rear wall. When Letitia +asked her Great-aunt Peggy to explain that, she only got the same +answer: + +"It is not best for you to know, my dear." + +Letitia studied the little green door more than she studied her +lesson-books, but she never got any nearer the solution of the +mystery, until one Sunday morning in January. It was a very cold day, +and she had begged hard to stay home from church. Her Aunt Peggy and +the maid-servant, old as they were, were going, but Letitia shivered +and coughed a little and pleaded, and finally had her own way. + +"But you must sit down quietly," charged Aunt Peggy, "and you must +learn your texts, to repeat to me when I get home." + +After Aunt Peggy and the old servant, in their great cloaks and +bonnets and fur tippets, had gone out of the yard and down the road, +Letitia sat quiet for fifteen minutes or so, hunting in the Bible for +easy texts; then suddenly she thought of the little green door, and +wondered, as she had done so many times before, if it could possibly +be opened. She laid down her Bible and stole out through the kitchen +to the cheese-room and tried the door. It was locked just as usual. +"Oh, dear!" sighed Letitia, and was ready to cry. It seemed to her +that this little green door was the very worst of all her trials; +that she would rather open that and see what was beyond than have all +the nice things she wanted and had to do without. + +Suddenly she thought of a little satin-wood box with a picture on the +lid which Aunt Peggy kept in her top bureau-drawer. Letitia had often +seen this box, but had never been allowed to open it. + +"I wonder if the key can be in that box," said she. + +She did not wait a minute. She was so naughty that she dared not wait +for fear she should remember that she ought to be good. She ran out +of the cheese-room, through the kitchen and sitting-room, to her +aunt's bedroom, and opened the bureau drawer, and then the satin-wood +box. It contained some bits of old lace, an old brooch, a yellow +letter, some other things which she did not examine, and, sure +enough, a little black key on a green ribbon. + +Letitia had not a doubt that it was the key of the little green door. +She trembled all over, she panted for breath, she was so frightened, +but she did not hesitate. She took the key and ran back to the +cheese-room. She did not stop to shut the satin-wood box or the +bureau drawer. She was so cold and her hands shook so that she had +some difficulty in fitting the key into the lock of the little green +door; but at last she succeeded, and turned it quite easily. Then, +for a second, she hesitated; she was almost afraid to open the door; +she put her hand on the latch and drew it back. It seemed to her, +too, that she heard strange, alarming sounds on the other side. +Finally, with a great effort of her will, she unlatched the little +green door, and flung it open and ran out. + +Then she gave a scream of surprise and terror, and stood still +staring. She did not dare stir nor breathe. She was not in the open +fields which she had always seen behind the house. She was in the +midst of a gloomy forest of trees so tall that she could just see the +wintry sky through their tops. She was hemmed in, too, by a wide, +hooping undergrowth of bushes and brambles, all stiff with snow. +There was something dreadful and ghastly about this forest, which had +the breathless odor of a cellar. And suddenly Letitia heard again +those strange sounds she had heard before coming out, and she knew +that they were savage whoops of Indians, just as she had read about +them in her history-book, and she saw also dark forms skulking about +behind the trees, as she had read. + +Then Letitia, wild with fright, turned to run back into the house +through the little green door, but there was no little green door, +and, more than that, there was no house. Nothing was to be seen but +the forest and a bridle-path leading through it. + +Letitia gasped. She could not believe her eyes. She ran out into the +path and down it a little way, but there was no house. The dreadful +yells sounded nearer. She looked wildly at the undergrowth beside the +path, wondering if she could hide under that, when suddenly she heard +a gun-shot and the tramp of a horse's feet. She sprang aside just as +a great horse, with a woman and two little girls on his back, came +plunging down the bridle-path and passed her. Then there was another +gun-shot, and a man, with a wide cape flying back like black wings, +came rushing down the path. Letitia gave a little cry, and he heard +her. + +"Who are you?" he cried breathlessly. Then, without waiting for an +answer, he caught her up and bore her along with him. "Don't speak," +he panted in her ear. "The Indians are upon us, but we're almost +home!" + +Then all at once a log-house appeared beside the path, and someone +was holding the door ajar, and a white face was peering out. The door +was flung open wide as they came up, the man rushed in, set Letitia +down, shut the door with a crash, and shot some heavy bolts at top +and bottom. + +Letitia was so dazed that she scarcely knew what happened for the +next few minutes. She saw there a pale-faced woman and three girls, +one about her own age, two a little younger. She saw, to her great +amazement, the horse tied in the corner. She saw that the door was of +mighty thickness, and, moreover, hasped with iron and studded with +great iron nails, so that some rattling blows that were rained upon +it presently had no effect. She saw three guns set in loopholes in +the walls, and the man, the woman, and the girl of her own age firing +them, with great reports which made the house quake, while the +younger girls raced from one to the other with powder and bullets. +Still, she was not sure she saw right, it was all so strange. She +stood back in a corner, out of the way, and waited, trembling, and at +last the fierce yells outside died away, and the firing stopped. + + +"They have fled," said the woman with a thankful sigh. + +"Yes," said the man, "we are delivered once more out of the hands of +the enemy." + +"We must not unbar the door or the shutters yet," said the woman +anxiously. "I will get the supper by candle-light." + +Then Letitia realized what she had not done before, that all the +daylight was shut out of the house; that they had for light only one +tallow candle and a low hearth fire. It was very cold. Letitia began +to shiver with cold as well as fear. + +Suddenly the woman turned to her with motherly kindness and +curiosity. "Who is this little damsel whom you rescued, husband?" +said she. + +"She must speak for herself," replied her husband, smiling. "I +thought at first she was neighbor Adams's Phoebe, but I see she is +not." + +"What is your name, little girl?" asked the woman, while the three +little girls looked wonderingly at the new-comer. + +"Letitia Hopkins," replied Letitia in a small, scared voice. + +"Letitia Hopkins, did you say?" asked the woman doubtfully. + +"Yes, ma'am." + +They all stared at her, then at one another. + +"It is very strange," said the woman finally, with a puzzled, +half-alarmed look. "Letitia Hopkins is my name." + +"And it is mine, too," said the eldest girl. + +Letitia gave a great jump. There was something very strange about +this. Letitia Hopkins was a family name. Her grandmother, her +father's mother, had been Letitia Hopkins, and she had always heard +that the name could be traced back in the same order for generations, +as the Hopkinses had intermarried. She looked up, trembling, at the +man who had saved her from the Indians. + +"Will you please tell me your name, sir?" she said. + +"John Hopkins," replied the man, smiling kindly at her. + +"Captain John Hopkins," corrected his wife. + +Letitia gasped. That settled it. Captain John Hopkins was her +great-great-great-grandfather. Great-aunt Peggy had often told her +about him. He had been a notable man in his day, among the first +settlers, and many a story concerning him had come down to his +descendants. A queer miniature of him, in a little gilt frame, hung +in the best parlor, and Letitia had often looked at it. She had +thought from the first that there was something familiar about the +man's face, and now she recognized the likeness to the miniature. + +It seemed awful, and impossible, but the little green door led into +the past, and Letitia Hopkins was visiting her great-great-great- +grandfather and grandmother, great-great-grandmother, and her +great-great-aunts. + +Letitia looked up in the faces, all staring wonderingly at her, and +all of them had that familiar look, though she had no miniature of +the others. Suddenly she knew that it was a likeness to her own face +which she recognized, and it was as if she saw herself in a +looking-glass. She felt as if her head was turning round and round, +and presently her feet began to follow the motion of her head, then +strong arms caught her, or she would have fallen. + +When Letitia came to herself again, she was in a great feather +bed, in the unfinished loft of the log-house. The wind blew in +her face, a great star shone in her eyes. She thought at first +she was out of doors. Then she heard a kind but commanding voice +repeating: "Open your mouth," and stared up wildly into her +great-great-great-grandmother's face, then around the strange little +garret, lighted with a wisp of rag in a pewter dish of tallow, +and the stars shining through the crack in the logs. Not a bit of +furniture was there in the room, besides the bed and an oak chest. +Some queer-looking garments hung about on pegs and swung in the +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 away." + +But Letitia was weeping with fright. "I can't go to sleep," she +sobbed. "I'm afraid they'll come again." + +"Very likely they will," replied the other Letitia coolly. "They come +'most every night." + +The little great-great-aunt Phyllis laughed again. "She can't go to +sleep because she heard Injuns," she tittered. + +"Hush," said her sister Letitia, "she'll get accustomed to them in +time." + +But poor Letitia slept no more till four o'clock. Then she had just +fallen into a sweet doze when she was pulled out of bed. + +"Come, come," said her great-great-great-grandmother, Goodwife +Hopkins, "we can have no lazy damsels here." + +Letitia found that her bedfellows were up and dressed and downstairs. +She heard a queer buzzing sound from below, as she stood in her bare +feet on the icy floor and gazed about her, dizzy with sleep. + +"Hasten and dress yourself," said Goodwife Hopkins. "Here are some of +Letitia's garments I have laid out for you. Those which you wore here +I have put away in the chest. They are too gay, and do not befit a +sober, God-fearing damsel." + +With that, Goodwife Hopkins descended to the room below, and Letitia +dressed herself. It did not take her long. There was not much to put +on beside a coarse wool petticoat and a straight little wool gown, +rough yarn stockings, and such shoes as she had never seen. + +"I couldn't run from Injuns in these," thought Letitia miserably. +When she got downstairs she discovered what the buzzing noise was. +Her great-great-grandmother was spinning. Her great-great-aunt +Candace was knitting, and little Phyllis was scouring the hearth. +Goodwife Hopkins was preparing breakfast. + +"Go to the other wheel," said she to Letitia, "and spin until the +porridge is done. We can have no idle hands here." + +Letitia looked helplessly at a great spinning-wheel in the corner, +then at her great-great-great-grandmother. + +"I don't know how," she faltered. + +Then all the great-grandmothers and the aunts cried out with +astonishment. + +"She doesn't know how to spin!" they said to one another. + +Letitia felt dreadfully ashamed. + +"You must have been strangely brought up," said Goodwife Hopkins. +"Well, take this stocking and round out the toe. There will be just +about time enough for that before breakfast." + +"I don't know how to knit," stammered Letitia. + +Then there was another cry of astonishment. Goodwife Hopkins cast +about her for another task for this ignorant guest. + +"Explain the doctrine of predestination," said she suddenly. + +Letitia jumped up and stared at her with scared eyes. + +"Don't you know what predestination is?" demanded Goodwife Hopkins. + +"No, ma'am," half sobbed Letitia. + +Her great-great-grandmother and her great-great-aunts made shocked +exclamations, and her great-great-great-grandmother looked at her +with horror. "You have been brought up as one of the heathen," said +she. Then she produced a small book, and Letitia was bidden to seat +herself upon a stool and learn the doctrine of predestination before +breakfast. + +The kitchen was lighted only by one tallow candle and the firelight, +for it was still far from dawn. Letitia drew her little stool close +to the hearth, and bent anxiously over the fire-lit page. She +committed to memory easily, and repeated the text like a frightened +parrot when she was called upon. + +"The child has good parts, though she is woefully ignorant," said +Goodwife Hopkins aside to her husband. "It shall be my care to +instruct her." + +Letitia, having completed her task, was given her breakfast. It was +only a portion of corn-meal porridge in a pewter plate. She had never +had such a strange breakfast in her life, and she did not like +corn-meal. She sat with it untasted before her. + +"Why don't you eat?" asked her great-great-great-grandmother +severely. + +"I--don't--like--it," faltered Letitia. + +If possible, they were all more shocked by that than they had been by +her ignorance. + +"She doesn't like the good porridge," the little great-great-aunts +said to each other. + +"Eat the porridge," commanded Captain John Hopkins sternly, when he +had gotten over his surprise. + +Letitia ate the porridge, every grain of it. After breakfast the +serious work of the day began. Letitia had never known anything like +it. She felt like a baby who had just come into a new world. She was +ignorant of everything that these strange relatives knew. It made no +difference that she knew some things which they did not, some +advanced things. She could, for instance, crochet, if she could not +knit. She could repeat the multiplication-table, if she did not know +the doctrine of predestination; she had also all the States of the +Union by heart. But advanced knowledge is not of as much value in the +past as past knowledge in the future. She could not crochet, because +there was no crochet needles; there were no States of the Union; and +it seemed doubtful if there was a multiplication-table, there was so +little to multiply. + +So Letitia had set herself to acquiring the wisdom of her ancestors. +She learned to card, and hetchel, and spin and weave. She +learned to dye cloth, and make coarse garments, even for her +great-great-great-grandfather, Captain John Hopkins. She knitted +yarn stockings, she scoured brass and pewter, and, more than all, +she learned the entire catechism. Letitia had never really known +what work was. From long before dawn until long after dark, she +toiled. She was not allowed to spend one idle moment. She had no +chance to steal out and search for the little green door, even had +she not been so afraid of wild beasts and Indians. + +She never went out of the house except on the Sabbath day. Then, in +fair or foul weather, they all went to meeting, ten miles through the +dense forest. Captain John Hopkins strode ahead, his gun over his +shoulder. Goodwife Hopkins rode the gray horse, and the girls rode by +turns, two at a time, clinging to the pillion at her back. Letitia +was never allowed to wear her own pretty plain dress, with the velvet +collar, even to meeting. + +"It would create a scandal in the sanctuary," said Goodwife Hopkins. +So Letitia went always in the queer little coarse and scanty gown, +which seemed to her more like a bag than anything else; and for +outside wraps she had--of all things--a homespun blanket pinned over +her head. Her great-great-grandmother and her great-great-aunts were +all fitted out in a similar fashion. Goodwife Hopkins, however, had a +great wadded hood and a fine red cloak. + +There was never any fire in the meeting-house, and the services +lasted all day, with a short recess at noon, during which they went +into a neighboring house, sat round the fire, warmed their half +frozen feet, and ate cold corn-cakes and pan-cakes for luncheon. +There were no pews in the meeting-house, nothing but hard benches +without backs. If Letitia fidgetted, or fell asleep, the tithing-men +rapped her. Letitia would never have been allowed to stay away from +meeting, had she begged to do so, but she never did. She was afraid +to stay alone in the house because of Indians. + +Quite often there was a rumor of hostile Indians in the neighborhood, +and twice there were attacks. Letitia learned to load the guns and +hand the powder and bullets. + +She grew more and more homesick as the days went on. They were all +kind to her, and she became fond of them, especially of the +great-great-grandmother of her own age, and the little +great-great-aunts, but they seldom had any girlish sports together. +Goodwife Hopkins kept them too busily at work. Once in a while, as +a special treat, they were allowed to play bean-porridge-hot for +fifteen minutes. They were not allowed to talk after they went to +bed, and there was little opportunity for girlish confidences. + +However, there came a day at last when Captain Hopkins and his +wife were called away to visit a sick neighbor, some twelve miles +distant, and the four girls were left in charge of the house. At +seven o'clock the two younger went to bed, and Letitia and her +great-great-grandmother remained up to wait for the return of their +elders, as they had been instructed. Then it was that the little +great-great-grandmother showed Letitia her treasures. She had only +two, and was not often allowed to look at them, lest they wean her +heart away from more serious things. They were kept in a secret +drawer of the great chest for safety, and were nothing but a little +silver snuff-box with a picture on the top, and a little flat glass +bottle, about an inch and a half long. + +"The box belonged to my grandfather, and the bottle to his mother. I +have them because I am the eldest, but I must not set my heart on +them unduly," said Letitia's great-great-grandmother. + +Letitia tried to count how many "greats" belonged to the ancestors +who had first owned these treasures, but it made her dizzy. She had +never told the story of the little green door to any of them. She had +been afraid to, knowing how shocked they would be at her +disobedience. Now, however, when the treasure was replaced, she was +moved in confidence, and told her great-great-grandmother the story. + +"That is very strange," said her great-great-grandmother, when +Letitia had finished. "We have a little green door, too; only ours is +on the outside of the house, in the north wall. There's a spruce tree +growing close up against it that hides it, but it is there. Our +parents have forbidden us to open it, too, and we have never +disobeyed." + +She said the last with something of an air of superior virtue. +Letitia felt terribly ashamed. + +"Is there any key to your little green door?" she asked meekly. + +For answer her great-great-grandmother opened the secret drawer of +the chest again, and pulled out a key with a green ribbon in it, the +very counterpart of the one in the satin-wood box. + +Letitia looked at it wistfully. + +"I should never think of disobeying my parents, and opening the +little green door," remarked her great-great-grandmother, as she put +back the key in the drawer. "I should think something dreadful would +happen to me. I have heard it whispered that the door opened into the +future. It would be dreadful to be all alone in the future, without +one's kins-folk." + +"There may not be any Indians or catamounts there," ventured Letitia. + +"There might be something a great deal worse," returned her +great-great-grandmother severely. + +After that there was silence between the two, and possibly also a +little coldness. Letitia knitted and her great-great-grandmother +knitted. Letitia also thought shrewdly. She had very little doubt +that the key which she had just been shown might unlock another +little green door, and admit her to her past which was her ancestors' +future, but she realized that it was beyond her courage, even if she +had the opportunity, to take it, and use it provided she could find +the second little green door. She had been so frightfully punished +for disobedience, that she dared not risk a second attempt. Then too +how could she tell whether the second little green door would admit +her to her grandmother's cheese-room? She felt so dizzy over what had +happened, that she was not even sure that two and two made four, and +b-o-y spelt boy, although she had mastered such easy facts long ago. +Letitia had arrived at the point wherein she did not know what she +knew, and therefore, she resolved that she would not use that other +little key with the green ribbon, if she had a chance. She shivered +at the possibilities which it might involve. Suppose she were to open +the second little green door and be precipitated head first into a +future far from the one which had merged into the past, and be more +at a loss than now. She might find the conditions of life even more +impossible than in her great-great-great-grandfather's log cabin with +hostile Indians about. It might, as her great-great-grandmother +Letitia had said, be much worse. So she knitted soberly, and the +other Letitia knitted, and neither spoke, and there was not a sound +except the crackling of the hearth fire and bubbling of water in a +large iron pot which swung from the crane, until suddenly there was a +frantic pounding at the door, and a sound as if somebody were hurled +against it. + +Both Letitias started to their feet. Letitia turned pale, but her +great-great-grandmother Letitia looked as usual. She 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 boy straightened himself. He saw the other Letitia and his blue +eyes were full of admiration and bravery. "Of course I know how," +said he. "Haven't I killed ten wolves and aren't their heads nailed +to the outside of the meeting-house?" + +Letitia was quite sure that the boy lied, but she knew that he lied +to please her, and she liked him for it. + +Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed. "You are the greatest +braggart in the Precinct," said she. "Nary a wolf have you killed, +and you ran because you heard a wild cat or a bear. Where are the +Injuns, pray?" + +"I know there were Injuns after me," said the boy earnestly, "but +perhaps I frightened them away. I brandished my knife as I ran." + +Great-great-grandmother Letitia sniffed again, but she looked +anxious. "I hope," said she, "that father and mother will not be +molested on their way home." + +"Give me a musket," declared the boy bravely, "and I will guard the +path." + +"You!" returned Great-great-grandmother Letitia scornfully. "You are +naught but a child." + +"I can handle a musket as well as a man," said Josephus Peabody with +such a straightening of his small back that it seemed positively +alarming, and another glance at Letitia, who returned it. She thought +him a very pretty boy, and quite brave, offering to guard the path +all alone, although he was so young, not much older than she was. + +Great-great-grandmother Letitia took up a musket decidedly. "Very +well," said she, "if you can handle a musket like a man, here be the +chance. Take this musket, and I will take one, and Letitia will take +one, and we will leave the door ajar, so we can dash in if +hard-pressed, and we will keep watch lest father and mother be +attacked unawares at the threshold." + +Letitia was horribly afraid, but she had learned in the Spartan +household of her ancestors, to be more afraid of fear than of +anything else, so she pulled a blanket over her head and shouldered a +musket, and, after the elder Letitia had unbarred and unbolted the +door, they all stepped out into the night, armed and ready to guard +the house. + +"Candace can handle a musket and so can little Phyllis at a pinch," +said the elder Letitia thoughtfully, "but I for one am thinking that +your Injuns are catamounts, Josephus Peabody." + +"They are Injuns," said the boy stoutly, peering out into the gloom. + +They were in perfect darkness, for it was a cloudy night, and not a +ray came from the house-door. + +"For what reason were you abroad to-night?" inquired the elder in +what Letitia considered a disagreeably patronizing tone as addressed +to such a pretty brave little boy. + +"I went to visit my rabbit traps," replied the boy, but his voice was +slightly hesitant. + +"In this darkness?" + +"I had a pine knot, but I flung it away when I heard the noises." + +"A pine knot, and Injuns around, and you with naught but a scalping +knife? 'Tis not bravery but tomfoolery," said the elder Letitia. +"I'll warrant you stole out without the knowledge of Goodman Cephas +Holbrook and Mistress Holbrook, and they having taken you in as they +did and given you food and shelter, with nine of their own to care +for, and not knowing of a certainty who you might be." + +Letitia felt sure that the boy hung his head in the darkness. He +mumbled something incoherent. + +"It was out of the window in the lean-to you got, and ran away," +declared the elder Letitia severely. "You are not a boy to be +trusted. You can remain here with Letitia, and I will stand guard a +little way down the path; and do not speak above a whisper, although +I be sure there be none but catamounts to hear." + +With that, Great-great-grandmother Letitia, musket over shoulder, +moved down the path and stood quite concealed as if by a vast cloak +of night, an alert vigilant young figure with the hot blood of her +time leaping in her veins, and the shrewd brain of her time alive to +everything which might stir that darkness with sound or light. + +"Who are you?" whispered Letitia to the boy. + +"I am Josephus Peabody, but I was always called Joe till I came +here," the boy whispered back. + +Letitia pondered. The name sounded very familiar to her, just as the +boy's face had looked. Then suddenly she remembered. "When I was a +little girl," she whispered, "not more than seven--I am going on ten +now--I knew a little boy named Joe Peabody, and he was visiting his +grandmother, Mrs. Joe Peabody. She lives about half a mile from my +Aunt Peggy's around the corner of the road. It is a big white house +next to the graveyard." + +"That was me," said the boy. "At least," he added in rather a dazed +and hopeless tone, "I suppose it was, and I guess I remember you too. +You had curls, and we went coasting down that long hill near +Grandmother's together." + +"Seems to me we did," said Letitia, and her own tone was dazed and +hopeless. + +"Since I have been here," whispered the boy, "I haven't been exactly +sure who I was and that is the truth. The folks where I am staying +are real good. They go to meeting all day Sunday and they don't work +Saturday nights, but I can't understand it. We have to make all the +things I have seen already made, for one thing." + +Letitia nodded in the dark. + +"That is the way here," said she. + +"And Mr. Cephas Holbrook has just the name that my +great-great-great-uncle on my mother's side had," said the boy, in a +whisper so puzzled that it was fairly agonized. "Grandmother has told +me about him. He had a battle with six Injuns and killed them all +himself, and this Mr. Cephas Holbrook has done just that same thing. +And he killed ten wolves and nailed their heads to the meeting-house. +Say," the boy continued confidentially, "those were the heads I +meant, you know." + +"Of course I know," whispered Letitia. "I wouldn't speak to you if +you had done such awful things." + +"I didn't, honestly," said Josephus Peabody. "Where did you come from +to-night?" asked Letitia. + +"Why, I came from Mr. Cephas Holbrook's. It's about ten miles away on +that side." The boy pointed in the dark. + +"You came all that way?" + +"I had to if I came at all. I don't get any time to see my traps +day-times. I have to work. I have to chop wood, and make wooden pegs. +I never saw wooden pegs, till--till I came here. I have to work all +day. Eliphalet Holbrook, he's a boy about my size, got out of the +window one night, when it was moonlight, and we set traps, and we +haven't either of us had a chance to look at them and see if we've +caught anything; but to-night, I had a cold and they sent me to bed +early and I whispered to Eliphalet, that I'd see those traps; and I +had a pine knot, and I run and run, but I couldn't find the traps." + +"You didn't run ten miles?" + +"No, the traps were set only about three miles from where we live and +I rather think I lost my way. Then I heard the Injuns--say, I used to +call them Indians." + +"So did I," said Letitia. + +"They say Injuns here. Then I heard them, and I run the rest of the +way, and then I saw your light. Are you one of Captain John Hopkins' +children?" + +"I don't know. I don't think I am," replied Letitia miserably. + +"What is your name?" + +"Letitia Hopkins." + +"Then you must be." + +"I don't believe I am." + +Suddenly Letitia felt a hard little boy-hand clutch hers in the dark. +The boy's voice whispered forcibly in her ear. "Say," said the voice, +"did you--did you get here, I wonder, in some queer way just as I +did?" + +Letitia whispered forcibly, "Through a little green door in my +Great-aunt Peggy's cheese-room." + +"Had she told you never to open it?" + +"Yes, but she and Hannah left me alone when they went to meeting and +I found the key in a little box, and the key had a green ribbon and +it unlocked the door, and I was in the woods around here, and Aunt +Peggy's house was gone and everything." + +"How long have you been here?" + +"I don't know. It must have been a long time, for I have done so much +work, and learned to do so much that I had started with all done." + +"It is just the same with me," whispered the boy. + +Letitia shivered, half with joy, half with horror. "Did you come +through a little green door?" + +"No, I came through a book." + +Letitia jumped. "A book!" she repeated feebly. + +"Yes, it was a book. I didn't know it at first. I thought it was just +a wooden box up in Grandmother Peabody's garret, and it was always +locked, and Grandmother Peabody said I was never to ask any questions +about it, and never to try to open it. I expect she was afraid I +might try to pick the lock. Then I began to suspect that it was a +book, and then I found the key. I stayed at home from meeting just +like you, and I had a cold. My father had died, and I had come to +live with Grandmother Peabody." + +"I remember now Aunt Peggy told Hannah about it," whispered Letitia +with sudden remembrance. + +"I don't know how long ago it was, for I have done so much work +making wooden nails, when all the nails I had ever seen were bought +at a shop, and such things, that it seems an awful long time; but I +was left alone just the way you were, and I found the key to that +book that looked like a wooden box. It was in a little drawer of +Grandmother's secretary." + +"Did it have a green ribbon on it?" whispered Letitia breathlessly. + +"Yes, it did, honest, a green ribbon, and I went up in the garret and +I unlocked that book, and first thing I knew I was in the woods +around the house where I live now, and a wolf was chasing me, and Mr. +Cephas Holbrook shot him, and took me home." + +Letitia sighed. "Do you like it here?" she whispered. + +"I think it is awful, don't you?" + +"Yes, I do, but I don't dare say so." + +"I do," said Josephus Peabody. "I ain't afraid of anything that ain't +bigger and stronger than I am, honest, and I have killed one wolf my +own self. That is true, but I didn't kill the others. I told that +because that other girl was turning up her nose so at me. But I don't +like to live here at all. I used to complain when I was Joe instead +of Josephus, and had to learn lessons, and do errands. But this is +worse than anything I ever dreamed about when I had the nightmare." + +"That is the way I feel," said Letitia soberly. "I used to complain, +but I wouldn't now. I've been living back of complaints too long." + +"So have I," said Josephus. Then he added, "Say, I'm awful glad I got +scared, and ran here, and found you." + +"So am I." + +"There's something I want to tell you that's very queer," whispered +Josephus. "There is a wooden book just like the one in Mr. Holbrook's +house under the eaves in the lean-to, and I know where the key is. It +is in the chest in the kitchen, in the till hidden under a lot of +linen night-caps." + +"Has it a green ribbon on it?" whispered Letitia fearfully. + +"Yes, it has. Say, don't you ever think you'd like to run away from +here?" + +"Yes, but I'm afraid I might get into something worse." + +"That's the way I feel. Otherwise we might both watch our chance and +go through that wooden book in our lean-to, but we might find +ourselves in Grandmother Peabody's garret where I came from, and we +might find ourselves in a place full of worse wild animals than there +are here, and things worse than Injuns. And we might have to learn +more than we've learned here, and work harder, and I don't feel as if +I could stand that." + +"I don't either." Then Letitia whispered very violently, "There is a +little green door here, and I know where the key is, with a green +ribbon, but I am afraid." + +"That's very funny--just like me," said Josephus. + +"Well, I may make up my mind to take the chance anyhow, and if I do +you had better. Say, if you hear I've gone, you just go through your +little green door, will you?" + +"Maybe," whispered Letitia doubtfully, and then her +Great-great-grandmother Letitia came back. "There isn't a sign of an +Injun here," said she, "and I am 'most froze. I'm going to start the +fire, and you boy, you had better come too. You can sleep on the +floor by the fire to-night and go home in the morning. Father and +mother are coming. I heard their horses. Mother's is a little lame, +and favors one foot, and I know. They're right here, and they'll be +cold, and I've got to start up the fire." + +"I'll help," cried Josephus. + +"You'd better," said the elder Letitia; "if I had a brother as big as +you, he'd have to work instead of hunting rabbits." + +Josephus flew about the kitchen dragging heavy logs, and poking the +fire, and Letitia quite admired him, but her great-great-grandmother +simply scolded. "You are a most unhandy boy," said she. "You can have +had little training in making hearth fires." + +However, the flames leaped high into the great chimney mouth, when +Captain John Hopkins and his wife entered. + +"How pleasant it is, and how thankful we ought to be to have a good +warm room to enter," said Great-great-great-grandmother Letitia +Hopkins, although she looked very grave. The sick neighbor was very +sick unto death, it was feared, and she was a good woman and a good +neighbor. + +Josephus Peabody stayed all night and slept wrapped up in a homespun +blanket beside the fire, but the next morning it was hardly daylight +before Goodman Cephas Holbrook came for him. Cephas Holbrook was a +very stern man, and he believed in the rod. Before Josephus left he +had just one chance and he improved it. It was while Mr. Holbrook +was partaking of a glass of something warm and spicy which +Great-great-great-grandmother Letitia Hopkins mixed for him. It was a +cordial of her own compounding and a good thing for the stomach on a +bitter morning, and this morning was very bitter. + +Josephus whispered to Letitia: "He will give me an awful licking when +we get home, and I am not afraid, honest. But if I can get hold of +that key, I mean to go into that book this very night." + +Letitia looked frightened. + +"You had better--" began Josephus, and he nodded meaningly. + +Letitia knew what he meant, but she had no chance to reply, for Mr. +Holbrook had finished his cordial and had Josephus by the hand, and +was jerking him rather forcibly out of the door. + +"A froward child, I fear," remarked Captain John Hopkins when they +had gone. + +"Yes," assented his wife. + +"He is afraid of Injuns when there are none, too," said +Great-great-grandmother Letitia. + +"That is an evil thing, too," said her father. "It is distrusting the +Almighty to fear where is nothing to fear. A froward child, and I +trust that Goodman Holbrook will not spare the rod." + +Letitia was very sure that he would not, and she pitied poor Josephus +Peabody with all her heart. She also pitied herself more than usual +that day, for the cold was stinging, and she was put to hard tasks, +and she felt forlorn at the thought that her little brother in the +hardships of the Past might that very night strive to make his +escape. Gradually her own resolve grew. She was horribly afraid, but +she was also horribly homesick, and homesickness will urge to +desperate deeds. + +That night, also, Captain John Hopkins and his wife went to visit the +sick neighbor, and, after the younger sisters were in bed, Letitia +was left alone with her great-great-grandmother, who was sleepy. +Letitia did not talk; she knitted, with a shrewd eye upon the elder +Letitia, who presently fell fast asleep. Then Letitia rose softly, +and laid down her knitting work. It might be her chance for nobody +knew how long, and Josephus might even now be entering his book. She +pulled off her shoes, tiptoed in her thick yarn stockings up to the +loft, got her own clothes out of the chest, and put them on. The +little great-great-aunts did not stir. Letitia blew a kiss to them. +Then she tiptoed down, got the key out of the secret drawer, blew +another farewell kiss to her sleeping great-great-grandmother and was +out of the house. + +It was broad moonlight outside. She ran around to the north side of +the house, and there was the little green door hidden under the low +branches of the spruce tree. Letitia gave a sob of fear and +thankfulness. She fitted the key in the lock, turned it, opened the +door, and there she was back in her great-aunt's cheese-room. + +She shut the door hard, locked it, and carried the key back to its +place in the satin-wood box. Then she looked out of the window, and +there was her great-aunt Peggy, and the old maid-servant just coming +home from meeting. + +Letitia confessed what she had done, and her aunt listened gravely. +Letitia did not say anything about Josephus Peabody. + +She was not sure that he had made his escape, and if he had his +grandmother might punish him, and she considered that he had probably +suffered enough at the hands of Goodman Cephas Holbrook. + +Letitia's aunt listened gravely. "You were disobedient," said she +when Letitia had finished, "but I think your disobediance has brought +its own punishment, and I hope now that you will be more contented." + +"Oh, Aunt Peggy," sobbed Letitia, "everything I've got is so +beautiful, and I love to study and crochet and go to church." + +"Well, it was a hard lesson to learn, and I hoped to spare you from +it, but perhaps it was for the best," said her great-aunt Peggy. + +"I was there a whole winter," said Letitia, "but when I got back you +were just coming home from church." + +"It doesn't take as long to visit the past as it did to live in it," +replied her aunt. Then she sent Letitia to her room for the +satin-wood box, and, when she had brought it, took out of it a little +parcel, neatly folded in white paper, tied with a green ribbon. "Open +it," said she. + +Letitia untied the green ribbon and unfolded the paper, and there was +the little silver snuff-box which had been the treasure of the +great-great-grandmother, Letitia Hopkins. She raised the lid, and +there was also the little glass bottle. + +They had a very nice dinner that day, and afterward had settled down +for a quiet afternoon, Letitia feeling very happy, when there was a +jingle of sleigh bells, and Aunt Peggy cried out. "Why, I declare," +said she, "if there isn't Mrs. Joe Peabody with her little grandson +driving over this cold day. She is a very smart old lady." + +Then Aunt Peggy hurried out to tell Hannah, the maid servant, to have +some tea, and hot biscuits, and quince preserves, and pound cakes +served before the guests left, and Hannah with a shawl over her head, +went out and backed the old lady's horse into the barn, and Mrs. Joe +Peabody and her grandson entered. + +Mrs. Joe Peabody was a very pretty old lady when she was unwrapped +from her black cloak and two shawls and fitch tippet and pumpkin +hood, and seated in the big chair by the fire. Her white hair hung on +either side of her face in rows of beautiful curls, and her eyes were +blue as turquoises. Her grandson stood by her side, and she had a +loving arm around him. "You remember my grandson Joe, don't you, +dear?" she said to Letitia. "Two years ago you used to go coasting +together." + +"Yes'm," said Letitia. She and Joe glanced at each other, and their +eyes were very big, and their cheeks very red. + +Later on when the tea and biscuits and preserves and pound cake were +served, Joe and Letitia got a chance for a word. "You got back +alright through the little green door," whispered Joe. + +Letitia nodded. + +"And I came right through that book into grandma's garret," whispered +Joe, "and I told grandma all about it, and she only laughed and +hugged me and said some laws were made to be broken for the good of +the breakers. But I am glad to be back here, aren't you?" + +"Oh," gasped Letitia fervently, and she took a bite of pound cake. + +"This would have been corn meal mush there," said she. + +"And I should have got another whipping after I got out of the book +like the one I had before I got in," said Joe. + +They both ate pound cake and looked happily at each other. "I think," +said Joe presently, "that it would be better not to tell the other +boys and girls about all this. Grandmother thinks so." + +"Aunt Peggy does, too," said Letitia. "They might think we made it +all up, it is so queer. No, we will never tell anybody as long as we +live." + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Green Door, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREEN DOOR *** + +***** This file should be named 17887.txt or 17887.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/8/17887/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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