Page:Dorothy's spy; a story of the first "fovrth of Jvly" celebration, New York, 1776.djvu/55

44 distance that no words could be distinguished amid the uproar, and he had no idea of being thus held in check by two small girls.

"Now look here, you chilluns," he said persuasively, "I'se got ter do sumfin' else I'se boun' to ketch it hot when Massa comes home. He's gwine to 'low dat I ought'er tell him all 'bout it, an' I'se 'bleeged fur ter snoop' roun 'a littly bit. Ef yer don' wan' dis yere shutter opened, I'se gwine ter slide out'er de door. I kin lock it behin' me, an' you'll be jes' as safe as de chicken in de shell. Go back inter de odder room, honies, an' 'fore you'se know dat de ole man hab gone, he'll be here wid all de news."

Dorothy tried to be stern, as her mother would have been with a servant under similar circumstances; but the tears were so near her eyelids that the effort was unsuccessful. Before it was possible for her to speak without crying, Scipio had led Sarah and her back to the living room, and disappeared suddenly in the gloom of the long front hall.

As if believing that some great and imminent danger threatened, the girls clasped each other by the neck, as they sobbed feverishly, and retreated, without being really conscious of what they did, into the fireplace, heeding not the fact that by so doing they were trampling upon the evergreens with which Mistress Dean adorned the yawning,