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We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes.
The noise of his entrance roused his mother, who stared in drowsy astonishment at the bedraggled apparition on the threshold. "Tennie follered me ter the tanyard 'fore I fund her out," Birt explained. "It 'pears ter hev rained on her, considerable," he added deprecatingly. Tennie was looking eagerly over her shoulder to note the effect of this statement.
And he gave the mare the whip, and left Andy Byers, with his mouth full of rebukes, sitting motionless on the dozing old mule. The mare came back from the Settlement late that night under lash and spur, at a speed she had never before made. Day was hardly astir when Nate Griggs, wild-eyed and haggard, appeared at the tanyard in search of Birt.
Mart will be waiting for you down below Granny Neff's cabin, this side of the tanyard, as arranged." "What about that other business? Mart'll want to know when we're to " "He knows. The Paul Revere goes south day after to-morrow morning. If the plans are changed before that time, I'll get word to him. It may not be necessary to do anything at all.
Henry Roberts went to hear the great preacher and forgot his haste to receive his little legacy so that he might hurry back to the tanyard. Irving's eloquence entranced him, and it alone would have held him longer than the time he had allowed himself for absence from the tannery.
He hardly heard; and as the old bark-mill ground and ground the bark, and the mule jogged around and around, and the hot sun shone, and the voices of the men handling the hides at the tanpit were loud on the air, all his thoughts were of the cool, dark, sequestered ravine, holding in its cloven heart the secret he had discovered. Rufus happened to come to the tanyard today.
"Pete Thompson him ez war yander ter the tanyard day 'fore yestiddy with his dad," said the boy, "he tole it ter me ez how he seen a bar las' Wednesday a-climbin' over the fence ter thar cornfield, with a haffen dozen roastin'-ears under his arm an' a watermillion on his head. But WAR it a haffen dozen?
They were small factories, and not more than four hundred workmen were employed in all of them. The tanyard often made the water in the little river stink; the refuse contaminated the meadows, the peasants' cattle suffered from Siberian plague, and orders were given that the factory should be closed.
But the deedies hed all gone ter bed, an' the old hen war hoverin' of 'em, an' I didn't want ter 'sturb 'em," said Rufe considerately. "So I tole Pig-wigs ter meet me at the tanyard early, an' I'd fetch him one. An' ez his granny war goin' visitin' her merried daughter, she let him ride behind her on thar sorrel mare ez fur ez the tanyard. So he got hyar 'fore I did.
"Quit snappin' that lash. 'Pears-like ter me ez ye makes yerself powerful free round this hyar tanyard." "Tennie air a-growin' wonderful fast," the sly Nathan remarked pleasantly. Birt softened instantly. "She air a haffen inch higher 'n she war las' March, 'cordin' ter the mark on the door," he declared, pridefully. "She ain't pretty, I know, but she air powerful peart."
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