[Illustration: “‘GIVE ME THE KEY I SAY’”]
Patience slipped out of her chair and down to the floor, holding her sampler, covering the hidden key, as high as the man’s eyes. He loosed his grasp upon her arm, looking at her in wonder. Such a little lass, in her straight blue frock, and not as tall as his own little girl in England. She had the same soft eyes, though, and the same low, sweet voice.
“I would gladly give you what you wish, sir,” she began bravely, “but I promised my mother I would deliver the key to no one until she returned. Look!” She held the sampler still higher. “I am stitching my name. Is it not a stupid task on such a pretty day?”
“_A soft answer turneth away wrath._” The man read the text at the top of the sampler. Then he looked out of the window and farther than the apple trees.
“It is indeed neatly stitched, little lass,” he said. “My own Elizabeth is even now making her sampler, and wetting it with tears until I return to her, overseas.”
He gave a quick command to his men, who filed down the stairs, empty handed, and into the garden. Then he raised his hat in salute, and followed them as they marched slowly down the road and farther than Patience could see.
“My little girl—my Patience—are you safe?”
It was Mistress Arnold who ran across the orchard and into the kitchen, clasping the trembling little lass in her arms. “We saw the red coats from Mistress Brewster’s window and knew that they had been here. But you are unharmed—and the guns—the powder?”
“I spoiled my sampler, mother,” Patience gave a sobbing laugh as she held up her work with the crookedly stitched ending, and the unfinished name. “It is as you feared. I started my name too near the border and there is no room to finish it, but”—she held out the precious bit of iron, “here is the key.”
A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ RSTUVWXYZ123456789 Patience Arnold
From Tabitha Wells, aged ten, at Philadelphia, in the year 1776, to her cousin John Bradford, at Boston—a letter.
“It does seem more than a month ago that I said good-bye to you, and you took your long journey home again. Your visit was a bright spot in these troubled times. Do you remember the pair of robins that we watched building their nest in grandmother’s old apple tree. They have raised their brood of young ones now and the little birds have flown away. The old birds still live in the apple tree, though, and each day at sunrise and sunset they sing as if all the world were gay instead of fallen into this sad Revolution. And the early apples are as red as the coat of a British soldier and are dropping all over the grass of the garden.