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“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.”