The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-04-13
ur texts. To repeat to me when


! get home"
After Aunt Peggy and the old serv'
ant, 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 four easy texts; then
suddenly she thought of the little green
door, and wondered, as she had done
so many times before, ,ifit could possibly
be opened. She laid down her Bible
and stole out through the kitchen to
the cheese-room and tried the door, IL
was locked just as usual. "Oh, dear!"
sighed Letitia, and was ready to cry.
1t 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
oil the nice things she wanted and had
to do without.
Suddenly she thought of a little satin
wood box with picture on the lid
which Aunt Peggy kept in her top bu'
reau drawer. Letitia had often seen this
box, but had never been allowed to
open it.
81 wonder il the key can be in that
box?" said she.
She did not wait 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
the sitting-room, TO her aunt's bed
room, and opened the bureau-drawer,
and then the satin-wood box. 1t con-
tanned some bits of old lace, an old
brooch, q yellow letter, some other
things which she did not examine, and,
sure enough, little black key on
green ribbon. Letitia had not doubt
that it was the key of the little green
door. She trembled all over. she painted
for breath, she was so frightened, Dui
she did not hesitate. She took the key
did not stop to shut the satin-wooc
box or the bureau-drawer. She was sc
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 II
quite easily. Then, for a second, she
hesitated; she was almost afraid &c
open the door; she put her hand on the
latch and drew il back. 1t seemed To
her, too, that she heard strange, alarm.
ing sounds on the other side. Finally,
with a great effort of her will, she un
latched the little green door and flung
II open and ran out.
Then she gave a scream of surprise
and terror, and stood STILL staring. She
did not dare stir or breathe. She was
not in the open fields which had always
been behind the house. She was in the
midst of q 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, heaping underground
of bushes and brambles, all stir with
snow. There was something dreadful
and CHASTITY about The 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 the savage whoops of Indians, just
as she had read about them in her his
tory-boolS, and she also saw 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 bridle-path leading
through it.
Letitia gasped. She could not believe
her eyes. She plunged out into the
path and down it little way, but there
was no house. The dreadful yells
sounded nearer. She looked wildly at
the underground beside the path, won
dering IL she could hide under that,
when suddenly she heard gun-shot
and the tramp of a horses feet. She
sprang aside just as great horse, with
woman and two little girls on his
back, came plunging down the bridle-
path and past her. Then there was an,
other gun-shot, and man. with q wiA-