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"O, I wouldn't go up there to-night," said she. "Yes; I am going. I'm going to satisfy Nabby about the rats in the grain-chest, if I can." She was out the door, at the foot of the stairs, Nabby behind her, dishcloth and plate in hand, peering fearfully over her shoulder. Ann was in despair. Only one chance of averting the discovery suggested itself to her. She tipped over the churn.
She had barely time to fill a bowl with mush, and scud. How lightly she stepped over that back chamber floor, and how gingerly she opened the grain-chest lid. The thief looked piteously out at her from his bed of Indian corn. He was a handsome man, somewhere between forty and fifty. Indeed he came of a very good family in a town not so very far away.
So I opened my heart to Ham as we sat with our backs against the grain-chest, and told him all that had occurred on the Wavecrest as she drifted into the harbor that evening, and what had followed when I brought Paul Downes home with his hands tied behind his back.
The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain-chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking-pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking-glass, such as they sell at the country fairs for eight cents.
"O, oh!" she screamed. Back rushed Mrs. Polly and Nabby, and that ended the rat-hunt for that night. The waste of all that beautiful cream was all Mrs. Polly could think of prudent housewife that she was. So in the night, when the moon was up, and the others were sound asleep, Ann assisted her thief safely out of the grain-chest and out of the house.
"But, first," said Ann Wales, pausing bravely, with her hand on the grain-chest lid, speaking in a solemn whisper, "before I let you out, you must make me a promise." "What?" came back feebly. "That you will never, never, steal a horse again. If you don't promise, I will give you up, now." "I promise I won't," said the man, readily. Let us hope he never did.
She conducted the man across a little entry into a back, unfurnished chamber, where, among other things, were stored some chests of grain. The moon shone directly in the window of the attic-chamber, so it was light enough to distinguish objects quite plainly. Ann tiptoed softly from one grain-chest to another. There were three of them. Two were quite full; the third was nearly empty.
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