answered. “At least I have hopes of winning a ribbon. Not once this month have I failed in my sums, and I can read my chapters in the Bible as well as any child in school.”

“That is good!” Mistress Edwards said, pulling the boy’s long, dark cloak more closely about him and smoothing the cloth of his tall hat.

Preserve Edwards was a Puritan lad of many years ago. The log cabin that he was leaving to walk two miles through the clearing and across the woods to school was but a rough home. A few straight chairs and a hard settle, made of logs and standing by the fireplace, a deal table and the few pewter utensils, were almost the only furnishings of the living room. In one corner stood an old musket. Mistress Edwards looked toward it now in fear.

“Do you come home as soon as school is out, Preserve. I pray you do not linger on the way to play hare and hounds with the other boys and girls of the village. Remember, my boy, that your father is away with the horse these two days to fetch back a piece of linsey-woolsey cloth and some flour from Boston for me. He is not likely to come home for some days yet, and I am full of strange dread at what I saw in the cornfield this morning.”

“What did you see, mother?” Preserve’s eyes opened wide with wonder.

“It was not so much what I saw, but what it portended for us,” Mistress Edwards said. “It was only a flash of color, like painted feathers, among the withered stalks of corn. It minded me of Big Hawk’s headdress. If he were to find out that we were alone, one helpless woman and a boy of twelve here, I think it would go badly with us.”

Preserve laughed bravely. Then he reached up to kiss his mother good-bye.

“It was no more than a red-winged blackbird that you saw,” he said, “or perhaps it was a bright tanager. The birds are getting ready to flock, now, for they feel the autumn chill in the air. But I will hurry home—with my ribbon,” Preserve added.

Then he ran down the little path to the gate in the paling that surrounded the cabin, his speller under his arm, and his high-heeled, buckled shoes making the dry leaves scatter as he went.

It was a long road and a lonely one to the log schoolhouse. Preserve took his way through the cornfield where the dried stalks, rattling in the cold wind, made him think of the songs that he had heard Big Hawk and his tribe sing the last time they attacked the little Colonial settlement. That had been some months since, now, and Preserve could find no traces of footprints or any other marks of Indians in the cornfield.

“My mother had a fear for nothing,” Preserve said to himself. He went through a bit of woods, next, and pulled a small square of bark from one of the many birch trees that stood there, so white and still. It was for Preserve to write his sums upon in school, and as he hurried on he repeated his tables over and over to be sure that he knew them well.

There were log cabins scattered here and there, and from these came other boys and girls who followed Preserve on the way to school. Deliverance Baxter joined Preserve. She wore a long, scant, gray frock, and her yellow hair was tucked tightly inside a close, white cap. A white kerchief was folded neatly around her neck, and she, also, wore big buckles on her black slippers. Her eyes twinkled roguishly, though, as she chatted to Preserve.

“There is no doubt at all, Preserve, but that you will wear home the long streamers of red ribbon on your cape this afternoon. I have been quite as perfect as you in my lessons for the month, but, woe is me, I did a great wrong yesterday. You know that Master Biddle, our schoolmaster, has just purchased a new wig from Boston town. The queue in the back is so unusually long and tied with such a large bow that it caught my eye when I was getting the pile of copy books from behind his desk. I know not, Preserve, what witchery was in my fingers, but I tied Master Biddle’s queue to his chair. When he stood up, why, his wig was greatly disarranged; and I must needs stay after school until dusk, sitting on the dunce’s stool. I am most sorry, and will never be so witch-like again. You see I stand small chance of the ribbon, now, Preserve.”

“‘I TIED MASTER BIDDLE’S QUEUE TO HIS CHAIR’”

The boy laughed, but he took the little girl’s hand comfortingly in his. Reaching in his lunch bag, he took out a red apple and slipped it into the big pocket that hung at her side.

“You were always a bit roguish in spite of your Puritan dress and sober living, Deliverance,” he said. “Never mind about the ribbon. If I should win it, why, there is all the more chance of its being yours the next time. Here we are! See to it, Deliverance, that you tie no more queues to-day. Oh, see how finely Master Biddle is dressed for giving out the prizes!” Preserve said as they reached the schoolhouse door and took their places behind the rude desks, built of boards and resting on pegs in the floor.

Other children were quietly taking their places in the little schoolroom, the smaller ones perched on hard benches made of logs. They all looked in awe at the schoolmaster, who stood on a platform, facing them. He wore a smart velvet coat with long tails, and inside it could be seen a waist coat which was very long and a fine white shirt with stiffly-starched ruffles. His knee breeches were of velvet like his coat, and there were silver buckles at the knees as well as on his shoes. A stiffly-ironed stock was wound about his neck, and worn to keep his head stiff and straight as became the dignity of the times. Above all was his white powdered wig, neatly braided in the back.

Looking at Master Biddle alone was enough to make the children of the Colonies sit up very straight and recite their lessons as well as they could. There was a prayer first, and then the boys and girls recited their reading, spelling, and arithmetic. Their pencils were thick plummets of lead and their copy books were made of foolscap paper, sewed in the shape of books and carefully ruled by hand. At eleven o’clock came recess, and at the end of the afternoon the awarding of the good-conduct ribbons.

“For perfect deportment,” Master Biddle announced as he pinned a bow of blue ribbon to one boy’s cape.

“For poor lessons!” he said, sadly, as he fastened a black bow to another. Then he held up a red bow with especially long, streaming ends.

“For perfect deportment, and for perfect lessons,” he said, as he fastened the red ribbon bow to Preserve Edward’s cape.

To-day it would seem but a small prize, but in the eyes of these Puritan boys and girls of so many years ago, the bow of ribbon, its streamers of red gayly flying over the long cape of a boy or the dull linsey-woolsey frock of a little girl, was a mark of great honor indeed. Ribbons were scarce and high in price in those days. Colors for children were almost forbidden, and for their elders as well. So Preserve walked out of the school door at the end of the day with his head very high and started home as proudly as any soldier wearing a decoration for bravery.

He did not notice how the dusk was settling down all about him. The trees on either side, made dark shadows and there was no sound except the whir of a partridge’s wing or the rattle of a falling nut. He did not hear the soft footfall behind him until Deliverance, breathless and her face white with fear, was upon him. She laid a soft hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear:

“I beg you, Preserve, to let me walk with you. I know that it is not far to my cabin, but all the way through these woods I have heard strange sounds and I fancy, even now, that I see shapes behind the trees and bushes.”

Preserve took the timid little girl’s hand and tried to