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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.
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.
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.
But her proper pride has to be kept under steam, like a salvage-tug in harbour when there is a full gale in the Channel. However, she is better off than her great-great-aunts, who were exposed to what was described as satire. Nowadays, presumably, Man is not the treasure he was, for a good many women seem to scrat on cheerfully enough without him.
"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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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