“Isn’t it lucky I found Lily?” Berry asked soberly, as she made ready for her tramp over the ridge1 to the Braggs’ cabin.
“Lily is a great help,” Mrs. Arnold replied, but she did not tell Berry that the fact of having the fugitive2 slave girl in the house might prove a great danger to the Yankee household on the Tennessee mountain ridge.
“Do not say a word about Lily to Mollie or to Mr. and Mrs. Bragg,” Mrs. Arnold added, and Berry promised, thinking that whatever78 Mollie’s secret was it could not be more wonderful than the discovery of Lily.
“It’s like spring,” thought Berry as she strode along the leaf-covered path. “I smell it in the air.” For it was one of the days of late January when, among the ravines and valleys of the Tennessee mountains, spring seems close at hand. The sun shone warmly down, and wrens3, nuthatches and cardinals4 flitted about the forest. “It won’t be long before the sap begins to run and we can make maple-sugar,” thought Berry. For there was a grove5 of sugar maples6 not two miles distant from the cabin, and Berry recalled the previous spring when she and her father had tapped the trees, boiled down the sap and made maple-sugar. “And that’s what we’ll do this year,” she decided7 happily, as she left the path for a moment to watch a scurrying8 partridge as it fluttered over the rough ground.
Berry had not gone far from home, however, before she was sure that she was being followed; that someone, keeping well out of sight behind trees and underbrush, was not far behind her; and she wondered if it might not be the man who, only a week earlier, had spoken to her at the brook9 crossing, and mistaken her for a boy; and79 at this thought Berry’s hand sought the silver whistle.
“But the whistle wouldn’t help to-day; Father is too ill to come,” she thought; “but it might frighten anyone who was hiding,” she decided. But Berry did not use the whistle. She was a fleet runner, and off she went at her best pace, sure that she could outrun any would-be pursuer. Nevertheless, by the breaking of twigs10 and the crashing noises in the undergrowth, the little girl knew that her unseen pursuer still kept her in view; and not until she reached the highway, along which she must go for a short distance before reaching the rough lane leading to the Braggs’ cabin, did she believe that she was at last out of reach of her pursuer.
“I’ll ask Mr. Bragg to go home with me,” Berry resolved as she hurried up the lane, for she recalled the stranger’s threats if she told of having seen him, and did not wish to encounter him again.
As Berry came in sight of Mollie’s home she noticed that there was no thread of smoke rising from the chimney of the cabin; it had a lonely and deserted11 look, but Berry did not stop to think of this. She was sure that in a moment the80 door would open wide, and Mollie, smiling with pleasure at the sight of her friend, would give her a warm welcome.
Berry rapped on the door, and then gave it a little push. But the door did not open, there was no response to her knock, and Berry now noticed that the cabin windows on each side of the door were evidently boarded up on the inside.
“They’ve gone away! And Mollie did not tell me!” she exclaimed aloud, with a sense of angry resentment12 against poor Mollie.
“That was her old secret! All the time I was making her doll, and her dress, and when she was pretending to want to come to school she knew she was going off,” thought Berry, tears of angry resentment and disappointment coming to her eyes.
It was to be many weeks before Berry was to hear the true story of the Braggs’ sudden disappearance13, and learn that poor little Mollie had not been given time to tell her great secret, or to say good-bye to the friends who had given her such a happy birthday.
For a few moments Berry stood on the worn stone that formed the threshold to the dilapidated81 cabin, wondering where the Braggs had gone, and if they meant to return. The boarded windows made her feel sure that they had no intention of coming back, and, with a mournful sigh, Berry at last turned from the cabin and started on her tramp back through the forest.
Her thoughts were so filled by Mollie’s disappearance that she had entirely14 forgotten the possibility of again encountering the man who had called her “Berry Nees,” and not until she had left the main road and chanced to see a crouching15 figure lurking16 behind an old stump17 near the path did she realize that whoever it was that had followed her from home was still watching her every step.
Almost without thinking Berry drew the silver whistle from her pocket and its sharp call sounded clearly through the silence of the woodland path, and came echoing back as if repeated by a dozen whistles, and instantly the crouching figure sprang upright and leaped toward the little girl, exclaiming:
“Don’, Missie! Fer de lawd sakes, don’ blow no whissel!” and Berry found herself clasped tightly by the thin arms of Lily, who whispered fearfully:
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“Yo’ don’ know w’at a whissel might fotch, Missie. ’Deed yo’ don’!” and her big, frightened eyes stared at Berry as if they were both facing some great peril18.
Berry pulled herself angrily away from the girl’s clutching fingers.
“Was it you who followed me all the way from home?” she demanded.
“Yas, Missie,” came the faltering19 response.
“And you were hiding behind that stump to follow me home, I suppose?” she continued.
“Yas, Missie,” replied Lily in a whisper.
Berry was now feeling herself a much abused person. To have Mollie, her only friend and playmate, disappear without a word of explanation or good-bye had been a bitter experience; to have felt herself pursued all along the forest trail by a possible enemy, and now to discover that she had been needlessly afraid because of this stupid negro girl, made her angry and resentful. Berry did not stop to ask why Lily had followed her, or to remember that the girl was still afraid of every sound, and felt herself safe only when near to the little girl who had befriended her, and angry words rushed to her lips.
“Don’t you dare follow me another step! I83 don’t want to see you again, ever!” she declared, and without another glance at the cowering20 figure, Berry hurried on up the trail. She no longer noticed the calls of the forest birds, or the sunshine that sent flickering21 shadows across the woodland path. Mollie was gone, she was sure she would never see her again, and that stupid negro girl had made her run all that distance down the ridge as if pursued by a mountain lion, she thought resentfully.
“I wish Francis was home,” she half sobbed22, as she drew near the cabin. “Everything was all right when he was here. I hate war!” For Berry realized that it was the war that had taken her brother from home to unknown perils23 and to certain danger, and left her alone with her mother and father in the cabin, remote from friends.
She ran into the kitchen and, almost ready to cry, exclaimed:
“Mother! Mother! Mollie’s gone! The Braggs are all gone, and the cabin fastened up! And Mollie never let us know!”
“Perhaps Mollie did not have a chance, my dear,” said Mrs. Arnold quietly. “I am sure she would have told us if she could. But the Braggs84 are not the only ones who have disappeared. Lily has run away from us. She disappeared just after you left the cabin. I don’t understand her going, for she seemed to think herself safe with us.”
Berry stood silent for a moment, and then said slowly, “Lily will come back. Of course she will.”
“I hope she will; she was a great help; if your father has to stay indoors for a time I do not know how we will manage without her help,” rejoined Mrs. Arnold.
Berry stepped back to the porch and looked anxiously down the path, but there was no sign of Lily.
“Come in, dear; it is no use to look for her. Something must have frightened her, and so she has started off, or else she is dishonest and ungrateful,” said Mrs. Arnold.
When Berry told her father of the disappearance of the entire Bragg family, he declared that he was not surprised.
“Very likely Steve Bragg has heard that Commodore Foote’s gunboats are ready to come up the Tennessee, and that General Grant is preparing to advance upon the river forts, or that85 the Confederate forces may move toward Corinth. For Bragg is as much afraid of one army as of the other, and he has probably taken his family to some place farther from the river, and from the road to Corinth,” he said, adding, “Poor little Mollie; her one day at school is likely to be her last.”
“Perhaps they will come back?” Berry suggested, wishing she had not been so quick to blame Mollie for what it was plainly evident the little girl could not help.
“I do not think so,” said Mr. Arnold; “but what do you suppose has become of your black Lily?” and her father’s eyes rested questioningly on the sober face of his little daughter. Berry made no reply. She was beginning to be ashamed of her anger toward Lily, and to be sorry for her hasty words.
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1
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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3
wrens
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| n.鹪鹩( wren的名词复数 ) | |
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cardinals
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| 红衣主教( cardinal的名词复数 )； 红衣凤头鸟（见于北美，雄鸟为鲜红色）； 基数 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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7
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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9
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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10
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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11
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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12
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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14
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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16
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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cowering
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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22
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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