Four o’clock seemed slow in coming; but it struck at last, as hours always will if we wait long enough; and Miss Fitch dismissed school, after a little bit of Bible-reading and a short prayer.  People nowadays are trying to do away with Bibles and prayers in schools, but I think the few words which Miss Fitch said in the Lord’s ear every night ­and they were very few and simple ­sent the little ones away with a sense of the Father’s love and nearness which it was good for them to feel.  All the girls and some of the boys waited to kiss Miss Fitch for good-night.  It had been a pleasant day.  Nobody, for a wonder, had received a fault-mark of any kind; nothing had gone wrong, and the children departed with a general bright sense that such days do not often come, and that what remained of this ought to be made the most of.

There were still three hours and a half of precious daylight.  What should be done with them?

Eyebright and a knot of girls, whose homes lay in the same direction with hers, walked slowly down the street together.  It was a beautiful afternoon, with sunshine of that delicious sort which only June knows how to brew, ­warm, but not burning; bright, but not dazzling.  It lay over the walk in broad golden patches, broken by soft, purple-blue shadows from the elms, which had just put out their light leaves and looked like fountains of green spray tossed high in air.  There was a sweet smell of hyacinths and growing grass and cherry-blossoms; altogether it was not an afternoon to spend in the house, and the children felt the fact.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” said Molly Prime.  “Let’s do something pleasant all together instead.”

“I wish my swing were ready, and we’d all have a swing in it,” said Laura Wheelwright.  “Tom said he would put it up to-day, but mother begged him not, because she said I had a cold and would be sure to run in the damp grass and wet my feet.  What shall we do?  We might go for a walk to Round Pond; will you?”

“No; I’ll tell you,” burst in Eyebright.  “Don’t let’s do that, because if we do, the big boys will see us and want to come too, and then we sha’n’t have any fun.  Let’s all go into our barn; there’s lots of hay up in the loft, and we’ll open the big window and make thrones of hay to sit on and tell stories.  It’ll be just as good as out-doors, and no one will know where we are or come to interrupt us.  Don’t you think it would be nice?  Do come, Laura.”

“Delicious!  Come along, girls,” answered Laura, crumpling her soft sun-bonnet into a heap, and throwing it up into the air, as if it had been a ball.

“Oh, may we come too?” pleaded little Tom and Rosy Bury.

“No, you can’t,” answered their sister, Kitty, sharply.  “You’d be tumbling down and getting frightened, and all sorts of things.  You’d better run right home by yourselves.”

The little ones were silent, but they looked anxiously at Eyebright.

“I think they might come, Kitty,” she said.  “They’re almost always good, and there’s nothing in the loft to hurt them.  Yes; they can come.”

“Oh, very well, if you want the bother of them.  I’m sure I don’t mind,” replied Kitty.

Then they all ran into the barn.  The eight pairs of double-soled boots clattered on the stairs like a sudden hail-storm on a roof.  Brindle, old Charley, and a strange horse who seemed to be visiting them, who were munching their evening hay, raised their heads, astonished; while a furtive rustle from some dim corner in the loft showed that Mrs. Top-knot or Mrs. Cochin-China, hidden away there, heard too, and did not like the sound at all.

“Oh, isn’t this lovely!” cried Kitty Bury, kicking the fine hay before her till it rose in clouds.  “Barns are so nice, I think.”

“Yes, but don’t kick that way,” said Romaine Smith, choking and sneezing.  “Oh dear, I shall smother.  Eyebright, please open the window.  Quick, I am strangling.”

Eyebright, who was sneezing too, made haste to undo the rusty hook, and swing the big wooden shutter back against the outside wall of the barn.  It made an enormous square opening, which seemed to let in all out-doors at once.  Dark places grew light, the soft pure air, glad of the chance, flew in to mix with the sweet, heavy smell of the dried grasses; it was as good as being out-doors, as Eyebright had said.

The girls pulled little heaps of hay together for seats, and ranged themselves in a half-circle round the window, with Mr. Bright’s orchard, pink and white with fruit blossoms, underneath them; and beyond that, between Mr. Bury’s house and barn, a glimpse of valley and blue river, and the long range of wooded hills on the opposite bank.  It was a charming out-look, and though the children could not have put into words what pleased them, they all liked it, and were the happier for its being there.

“Now we’re ready.  Who will tell the first story?” asked Molly Prime, briskly.

“I’ll tell the first,” said Eyebright, always ready to take the lead.  “It’s a splendid story.  I read it in a book.  Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a little tailor, who was very good, and his name was Hans.  He lived all alone in his little house, and had to work very hard because he was poor.  One day as he sat sewing away, some one knocked at the door.

“‘Come in,’ said Hans, and an old, old man came in.  He was wrapped up in a cloak, and looked very cold and tired.

“‘Please may I warm myself by your fire?’ he said.

“’Why of course you may,’ ­said good little Hans.  ’A warm at the fire costs nothing, and you are welcome.’

“So the old man sat down and warmed himself.

“‘Have you come a long way to-day?’ Hans said.

“‘Yes,’ said the old man, ­’a long, long way.  And I’m ever so cold and hungry.’

“‘Poor old fellow,’ thought Hans.  ’I wish I had something for him to eat; but I haven’t, because there is nothing for my own dinner except a piece of bread and a cup of milk.’  But then he thought, ’I can do with a little less for once.  I’ll give the old man half of that.’  So he broke the bread in two, and poured half the milk into another cup, and gave them to the old man, who thanked him, and ate it up.  But he still looked so hungry, that Hans thought, ’Poor fellow, he is a great deal older than I. I can go without a dinner for once, and I’ll give him the rest.’  Wasn’t that good of Hans?”

“Yes, very good,” replied the children, beginning to get interested.

“When the old man had eaten up all the bread and milk, he looked much better.  And he got up to go, and said, ’You have been very good, and given me all your own dinner.  I wish I had something to give you in return, but I have only got this,’ and he took from under his cloak a shabby, old coffee-mill ­the shabbiest old thing you ever saw, all cut up with jack-knives, you know, and scratched with pins, with ink-spots on it,” ­Eyebright, drawing on her imagination for shabby particulars, was thinking, you see, of her desk at school, which certainly was shabby.

“Hans could hardly keep from laughing; but the old man said severely, ’Don’t smile.  This mill is better than it looks.  It is a magic mill.  Whenever you want any thing, you have only to give the handle one turn, and say, “Little mill, grind so and so, open sesame,” and, no matter what it is, the mill will begin of itself and grind it for you.  Then when you have enough, you must say, “Little mill, stop grinding, Abracadabra,” and it will stop.  Good-by,’ and before Hans could say a word, the old man hurried out of the door and was gone, leaving the queer old mill behind him.

“Of course Hans thought he must be crazy.”

“I should have thought so,” said Bessie Mather, who was cuddled in the hay close to Eyebright.

“Well, he wasn’t!  Hans at first thought he would throw the mill away, it looked so dirty and horrid, but then he thought, ’I might as well try it.  Let me see, what do I want most at this moment? why, my dinner to be sure.  I gave mine to the old man.  I’ll ask for a goose ­roast goose, with hot buttered rolls and coffee.  That’s a dinner for a prince, let alone a tailor like me.’

“So he gave the handle a turn, and said to the mill, ’Little mill, grind a fat roast goose, open sesame,’ ­not believing a bit that it would, you know.  And, just think! all of a sudden, the handle began to fly round as fast as the wind, and, in one second, out of the top came a beautiful roast goose, all covered with stuffing and gravy.  It came so fast that Hans had to catch hold of its drumsticks and take it in his hand, there wasn’t time to fetch a dish.  He was so surprised that he stood stock-still, staring at the mill with his mouth open, and the handle went on turning, and another goose began to come out of the top.  Then Hans was frightened, for he thought, ’What shall I do with two roast geese at once?’ and he shouted loudly, ’Little mill, stop grinding, Abracadabra,’ and the mill stopped, and the other goose, which had only began to come out, you see, doubled itself up, and went back again into the inside of the mill as fast as it came.

“Then Hans fetched a pitcher, and he said, ’Little mill, grind hot coffee with cream and sugar,’ and immediately a stream of coffee came pouring out, till the pitcher was full.  Then he ground some delicious rolls and butter, and then he set the mill on his shelf, and danced about the shop for joy.

“‘Hans,’ he said, ‘your fortune is made.’

“And so it was.  Because, you know, if people came and asked, ’How soon could you make me a coat?’ Hans just had to answer, ’Why, to-morrow of course;’ and then, when they were gone, he would go to the mill, and say, ‘Little mill, grind a coat to fit Mr. Jones,’ and there it would be.  The coats all fitted splendidly and wore twice as long as other coats, and all the town said that Hans was the best tailor that ever was, and they all came to him for things, and he got very rich and took a big shop.  But he was just as kind to poor people as ever, and the mill did every thing he wanted.  Wasn’t it nice?”

“I wish there really was a mill like that; I know what I would grind,” said Romaine.

“Well, what would you, Romy?”

“A guitar with a blue ribbon, like my cousin Clara Cunningham’s.  She puts the ribbon round her neck and sings, and it’s just lovely.”

“But you don’t know how to play, do you?” inquired Molly.

“No, but afterwards I’d grind a big music-box, and just as I began to play ­no, to pretend to play ­I’d set it off, and it would sound as if I was playing.”

“Pshaw, I’d grind something a great deal better than that,” cried Kitty.  “I’d grind a real piano, and I’d learn to play on it my own self.  I wouldn’t have any old make-believe music-boxes to play for me.”

“You never saw a guitar, I guess,” rejoined Romaine, pouting, “or you wouldn’t think so.”

“I’d grind a kitten,” put in Rosy, “a white one, just like my Snowdrop.  Snowdrop has runned away.  I don’t know where she is.”

“How funny she’d look, coming out of the coffee-mill, mewing and purring,” said Eyebright.  “Now stop telling what you’d grind, and let me go on.  Hans had a neighbor, a very bad man, whose name was Carl.  When he saw how rich Hans was getting to be, he became very enverous.”

“Very what?”

“Enverous.  He didn’t like it, you know.”

“Don’t you mean envious?” said Molly Prime.

“Yes, didn’t I say so?  Mother says I mispronounce awfully, and it’s because I read so much to myself.  I meant enver ­envious, of course.  Well, ­Carl noticed that every day when people had gone home to their dinners, Hans shut his door, and stayed alone for an hour, and didn’t let anybody come in.  This made him suspect something.  So one day he bored a little round hole in the back door of Hans’ house, and he sat down and put his eye to it, and thought, ’Here I stay, if it is a month, till I find out what that little rascal does when he is alone.’

“So he watched and watched, and for a long time he didn’t see any thing but Hans sewing away and waiting on his customers.  But at last the clock struck twelve, and then Hans shut his door and locked it tight, and Carl said to himself, ‘Ha, ha, now I have him!’

“Hans brought out the coffee-mill, and set it on the table, and Carl heard him say, ‘Little mill, grind roast veal, open sesame,’ and a nice piece of veal came out of the mill, and fell into a platter which Hans held to catch it, and then Carl snapped his fingers and jumped for joy, and ran off to the wharf, where there was a pirate ship whose captain was a friend of his, and he said to the pirate captain, ’Our fortunes are made.’

“’What do you mean?” asked the pirate.

“‘I mean,’ said Carl, ’that that little villain, Hans the tailor, has got a fairy mill which grinds every thing he asks for, and I know where he keeps it, and what he says to make it grind, and if you will go shares, I’ll steal it this very night, and we’ll sail off to a desert island, and there we’ll grind gold and grind gold till we are as rich as all the people in the world put together.  What do you say to that?’

“So the pirate captain was delighted, of course, because you know that’s all that pirates want, just to get gold, and he said ‘Yes,’ and that very night, when Hans was asleep, Carl crept in, stole the mill, ran to the wharf, and he and the pirate captain sailed away, and Hans never saw his mill again.”

“Oh, what a shame!  Poor little Hans,” cried the children.

“Well, it didn’t make so much matter,” explained Eyebright, comforting them, “because Hans by this time had got to be so well known, and people liked him so much, that he kept on getting richer and richer, and was always kind to the poor, and happy, so he didn’t miss his mill much.  The pirate ship sailed and sailed, and by and by, when they were ’way out at sea, the captain said to Carl, ’Suppose we try the mill, and see if it is really as good as you think.’

“‘Very well,’ said Carl, ‘what shall we grind?’

“‘We won’t grind any gold yet,’ said the captain, ’because gold is heavy, and we can do it better on the desert island.  We’ll just grind some little thing now for fun.’  Then he called out to the cook, and said, ‘Hollo, cook, is there any thing wanting there in your kitchen?’

“‘Yes, sir, please,’ said the cook, ’we’re out of salt; we sailed so quick that I couldn’t get any.’

“So Carl fetched the mill, and set it on the cabin table, and said, ‘Little mill, grind salt, open sesame.’

“And immediately a stream of beautiful white salt came pouring out, till two bags which the cook had brought were quite full, and then the captain said, ‘That’s enough, now stop it.’

“Just at that moment Carl recollected that he didn’t know how to stop the Mill.”

Here Eyebright made a dramatic pause.

“Oh, what next?  What did he do?” cried the others.

“He said all the words he could think of,” continued Eyebright; “‘Shut, sesame!’ and ‘Stop!’ and ‘Please stop!’ and ‘Don’t!’ and ever so many others; but he couldn’t say the right one, because he didn’t know it, you see!  So the salt kept pouring on, and it filled all the bags, and boxes, and barrels, and ­and ­all the ­salt-cellars, in the ship, and it ran on to the table, and it ran on to the floor; and the pirate captain caught hold of the handle and tried to keep it from turning; and it gave him such a pinch that he put his fingers into his mouth, and danced with pain.  Then he was so mad that he got an axe and chopped the mill in two, to punish it for knocking him.  But immediately another handle sprouted out on the half which hadn’t any, and that made two mills, and the salt came faster than ever.  At last, when it was up to their knees, Carl and the pirate captain ran to the deck to consult what they should do; and, while they were consulting, the mills went on grinding.  And the ship got so full, and the salt was so heavy, that, all of a sudden, down they all sank, ship and Carl and the pirates and the mills and all, to the bottom of the sea.”

Eyebright came to a full stop.  The children drew long breaths.

“Didn’t anybody ever get the mill again?” asked Bessie.

“No, never.  There they both are at the bottom, grinding away as hard as they can; and that’s the reason why the sea is so salt!”

“Is it salt?” asked little Rosy, who never had seen the sea.

“Why, Rosy, of course.  Didn’t you ever eat codfish?  They come out of the sea, and they’re just as salt as salt can be,” said Tom, who was about a year older than Rosy.

“Now, Molly, you tell one,” said Eyebright.  “Tell us that one which your grandma told you, ­the story about the Indian.  Don’t you recollect?”

“Oh, yes; the one I told you that day in the pasture.  It’s a true story, too, every bit of it.  My grandma knew the lady it happened to.  It was ever and ever so long ago, when the country was all over woods and Indians, you know, and this lady went to the West to live with her husband.  He was a pio-nary, ­no, pioneer, ­no, missionary, ­that was what he was.  Missionaries teach poor people and preach, and this one was awfully poor himself, for all the money he had was just a little bit which a church in the East gave him.

“Well, after they had lived at the West for a year, the missionary had to come back, because some of the people said he wasn’t orthodox.  I don’t know what that means.  I asked father once, and he said it meant so many things that he didn’t think he could explain them all; but ma, she said, it means ‘agreeing with the neighbors.’  Anyhow, the missionary had to come back to tell the folks that he was orthodox, and his wife and children had to stay behind, in the woods, with wolves and bears and Indians close by.

“The very day after he started, his wife was sitting by the fire with her baby in her lap, when the door opened, and a great, enormous Indian walked in and straight up to her.

“I guess she was frightened; don’t you?

“‘He gone?’ asked the Indian in broken English.

“‘Yes,’ she said.

“Then the Indian held out his hands and said, ­’Pappoose.  Give.’”

“Oh, my!” cried Romaine.  “I’d have screamed right out.”

“Well, the lady didn’t,” continued Molly.  “What was the use?  There wasn’t any one to scream to, you know.  Beside, she thought perhaps the Indian was trying her to see if she trusted him.  So she let him take the child, and he marched away with it, not saying another word.

“All that night, and all next day, she watched and waited, but he did not come back.  She began to think all sorts of dreadful things, ­that perhaps he had killed the child.  But just at sunset he came with the baby in his arms, and the little fellow was dressed like a chief, in a suit of doe-skins which the squaws had made, with cunning little moccasins on his feet and a feather stuck in his hair.  The Indian put him in his mother’s lap, and said, ­

“‘Now red man know white squaw friend, for she not afraid give child.’

“And after that, all the time her husband was gone, the Indians brought venison and game, and were real kind to the lady.  Wasn’t it nice?”

The children drew long breaths of relief.

“I don’t think I could have been so brave,” declared Kitty.

“Now I’ll tell you a story which I made up myself,” said Romaine, who was of a sentimental turn.  “It’s called the Lady and the Barberry Bush.

“Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a lady who loved a barberry bush, because its berries were so pretty, and tasted so nice and sour.  She used to water it, and come at evening to lay her snow-white hand upon its leaves.”

“Didn’t they prick?” inquired Molly, who was as practical as Romaine was sentimental.

“No, of course they didn’t prick, because the barberry bush was enchanted, you know.  Nobody else cared for barberry bushes except the lady.  All the rest liked roses and honeysuckles best, and the poor barberry was very glad when it saw the lady coming.  At last, one night, when she was watering it, it spoke, and it said, ­’The hour of deliverance has arrived.  Lady, behold in me a Prince and your lover!’ and it changed into a beautiful knight with barberries in his helmet, and knelt at her feet, and they were very happy for ever after.”

“Oh, how short!” complained the rest.  “Eyebright’s was a great deal longer.”

“Yes, but she read hers in a book, you know.  I made mine up, all myself.”

“I’ll tell you a ’tory now,” broke in little Rosy.  “It’s a nice ’tory, ­a real nice one.  Once there was a little girl, and she wanted some pie.  She wanted some weal wich pie.  And her mother whipped her because she wanted the weal wich pie.  Then she kied.  And her mother whipped her.  Then she kied again.  And her mother whipped her again.  And the wich pie made her sick.  And she died.  She couldn’t det well, ’cause the dottor he didn’t come.  He couldn’t come.  There wasn’t any dottor.  He was eated up by tigers.  Isn’t that a nice ’tory?”

The girls laughed so hard over Rosy’s story that, much abashed, she hid her face in Kitty’s lap, and wouldn’t raise it for a long time.  Eyebright tried to comfort her.

“It’s a real nice story,” she said.  “The nicest of all.  I’m so glad you came, Rosy, else you wouldn’t have told it to us.”

“Did you hear me tell how the dottor was eated up by tigers?” asked Rosy, peeping with one eye from out of the protection of Kitty’s apron.

“Yes, indeed.  That was splendid.”

“I made that up!” said Rosy, triumphantly revealing her whole face, joyful again, and bright as a full moon.

“Who’ll be next?” asked Eyebright.

“I will,” said Laura.  “Listen now, for it’s going to be perfectly awful, I can tell you.  It’s about robbers.”

As she spoke these words, Laura lowered her voice, into a sort of half-groan, half-whisper.

“There was once a girl who lived all alone by herself, with just one Newfoundland dog for company.  He wasn’t a big Newfoundland, ­he was pretty small.  One night, when it was all dark and she was just going to sleep, she heard a rustle underneath her bed.”

The children had drawn closer together since Laura began, and at this point Romaine gave a loud shriek.

“What was that?” she asked.

All held their breaths.  The loft was getting a little dusky now, and sure enough, an unmistakable rustle was heard among the hay in a distant corner!

“This loft would be a very bad place for a robber,” said Eyebright, in a voice which trembled considerably, though she tried to keep it steady.  “A robber wouldn’t have much chance with all our men down below.  James, you know, girls, and Samuel and John.”

“Yes, ­and Benjamin and Charles,” chimed in the quick-witted Molly; “and your father, Eyebright, and Henry, ­all down there in the barn.”

While they recited this formidable list, the little geese were staring with wide-open, affrighted eyes into the corner where the rustle had been heard.

“And, ­” continued Eyebright, her voice trembling more than ever, “they have all got pitchforks, you know, and guns, and ­oh, mercy! what was that?  The hay moved, girls, it did move, I saw it!”

All scrambled to their feet prepared to fly, but before any one could start, the hay in the corner parted, and, cackling and screaming, out flew Mrs. Top-knot, tired of her hidden nest, or of the story-telling, and resolved on escape.  Eyebright ran after, and shoo-ed her downstairs.  Then she came back laughing, and said, ­

“How silly we were!  Go on, Laura.”

But the nerves of the party were too shaky still to enjoy robber-stories, and Eyebright, perceiving this, made a diversion.

“I know what we all want,” she said; “some apples.  Stay here all of you, and I’ll run in and get them.  I won’t be but a minute.”

“Mayn’t I come too?” asked the inseparable Bessie.

“Yes, do, and you can help me carry ’em.  Don’t tell any stories while we’re gone, girls.  Come along, Bess.”

Wealthy happened to be in the buttery, skimming cream, so no one spied them as they ran through the kitchen and down the cellar stairs.  The cellar was a very large one.  In fact, there were half a dozen cellars opening one into the other, like the rooms of a house.  Wood and coal were kept in some of them, in others vegetables, and there was a swinging shelf where stood Wealthy’s cold meat, and odds and ends of food.  All the cellars were dark at this hour of the afternoon, very dark, and Bessie held Eyebright’s hand tight, as, with the ease of one who knew the way perfectly, she sped toward the apple-room.

In the blackest corner of all, Eyebright paused, fumbled a little on an almost invisible shelf with a jar which had a lid and clattered, and then handed to her friend a dark something whose smell and taste showed it to be a pickled butternut.

“Wealthy keeps her pickles here,” she said, “and she lets me take one now and then, because I helped to prick the butternuts when she made ’em.  I got my fingers awfully stained too.  It didn’t come off for almost a month.  Aren’t they good?”

“Perfectly splendid!” replied Bessie, as her teeth met in the spicy acid oval.  “I do think butternut pickles are just too lovely!”

The apple-room had a small window in it, so it was not so dark as the other cellars.  Eyebright went straight to a particular barrel.

“These are the best ones that are left,” she said.  “They are those spotty russets which you said you liked, Bessie.  Now, you take four and I’ll take four.  That’ll make just one apiece for each of us.”

“How horrid it would be,” said Bessie, as the two went upstairs again with the apples in their aprons, ­“how horrid it would be if a hand should suddenly come through the steps and catch hold of our ankles.”

“Good gracious, Bessie Mather!” cried Eyebright, whose vivid imagination represented to her at once precisely how the hand on her ankle would feel, “I wish you wouldn’t say such things, ­at least till we’re safely up,” she added.

Another moment, and they were safely up and in the kitchen.  Alas, Wealthy caught sight of them.

“Eyebright,” she called after them, “tea will be ready in ten minutes.  Come in and have your hair brushed and your face washed.”

“Why, Wealthy Judson, what an idea!  It’s only twenty minutes past five.”

“There’s a gentleman to tea to-night, and your pa wants it early, so’s he can get off by six,” replied Wealthy.  “I’m just wetting the tea now.  Don’t argue, Eyebright, but come at once.”

“I’ve got to go out to the barn for one minute, anyhow,” cried Eyebright, impatiently, and she and Bessie flashed out of the door and across the yard before Wealthy could say another word.

“It’s too bad,” she said, rushing upstairs into the loft and beginning to distribute the apples.  “That old tea of ours is early to-night, and Wealthy says I must come in.  I’m so sorry now that I went for the apples at all, because if I hadn’t I shouldn’t have known that tea was early, and then I needn’t have gone!  We were having such a nice time!  Can’t you all stay till I’ve done tea?  I’ll hurry!”

But the loft, with its rustles and dark corners, was not to be thought of for a moment without Eyebright’s presence and protection.

“Oh, no, we couldn’t possibly; we must go home,” the children said, and down the stairs they all rushed.

Brindle and old Charley and the strange horse raised their heads and stared as the little cavalcade trooped by their stalls.  Perhaps they were wondering that there was so much less laughing and talking than when it went up.  They did not know, you see, about the “perfectly awful” robber story, or the mysterious rustle, or how dreadfully Mrs. Top-knot in the dark corner had frightened the merry little crowd.