"'Estella,' she said, 'I want you to go for the cows, because your father is sick.'
"'Oh, bother!' said the pretty girl. 'I don't want to! I hate going for cows. I wish father wouldn't go and get sick!' Just think of a girl's speaking like that to her mother! And the Fairy sighed, for he thought, 'My wing won't get mended here,' and he hopped away.
"By and by he came to a house in another wood, and there was another girl. She wasn't pretty at all. She had short stubby brown hair like Cynthia's, and a turn-up nose like me, and her freckles were as big as Reuben's, but she looked nice and kind.
"The Fairy didn't have much hope that a girl who was as homely as that could mend wings. But while he was waiting, another woman came out. It was the turned-up-nose girl's mother, and she said, 'I want you to go for the cows to-night, because your father has broken his leg.'
"And the girl smiled just as sweet, and she said, 'Yes, mother, I'll be glad to go.'
"Then the Fairy rejoiced, and he came forward and said--Oh, dear!"
This was not what the Fairy said, but what Eunice said; for at that moment the little candle went out.
"Well, I am glad you got as far as you did," whispered Cynthia, "for I guess the turned-up-nose girl could mend the wing. Now, Reuby, if you'll go into your room I'll not be two minutes. And then you can light my candle."
In less than two minutes all was ready. This time there were two little girls in bed, and Reuben sat alone at the foot, ready to listen.
"My story," began Cynthia, "is about that girl in the window-pane in the ell. Her name was Mercy Marsh, and she lived in this house."
"No, it's made up, but I'm going to make believe that it's true. She slept in the corn chamber,--it was a bedroom then,--and she had that yellow painted bedstead of Hepzibah's.
"There was a hiding-place under the floor of the room. It was made to put things in when Indians came, or the English,--money and spoons, and things like that.
"One day when Mercy was spinning under the big elm, a man came running down the road. He was a young man, and very handsome, and he had on a sort of uniform.
"'Hide me!' he cried. 'They will kill me if they catch me. Hide me, quick!'
"Then the young man told her that he had accidentally shot a man who was out hunting with him, and that the man's brothers, who were very bad people, had sworn to have his blood.