It was Mehitable who presently came, dragging the stout little ladder in from its hiding place outdoors.
Mistress Condit hastily descended the ladder; but at its foot the girls could hear her exclaim in a low voice, and soon she had climbed up with a puzzled face.
"Everything seems intact; but the beasts have emptied the dye pot down there," she announced. Her gaze flew to the fireside corner where the dye pot, that necessary adjunct to colonial life, had been wont to stand. But the corner was empty. "Everything is covered with dye—the feather beds and the big Bible—alack, I doubt we shall ever be able to read from it again!"
Mehitable, who had climbed down into the cellar as soon as her mother was out of the way, now returned carrying the big book.
"'Tis true, Mother," she cried, holding out the Bible, still damp from the dye. "But I think the inside pages have escaped! 'Tis my belief the Hessians became angry at not finding more valuable articles and thought to make these things we had hidden, which they were doubtless too lazy to carry up, useless to us by emptying the dye pot's contents upon them."
"And all that good dye wasted!" mourned Mistress Condit. "But mind, not a word to your father of this to-day! Poor man, he has enough to worry over now!"
Thus bravely did the good wives and daughters of that time endure the fortunes and ravages of their war-stricken country.
When Squire Condit returned, however, he was not as cast down as might have been expected.
