She did not dream that her son, Hesden Le Moyne, cared anything for
the little Yankee chit except upon broadly humanitarian grounds,
or perhaps from gratitude for her kindly attention to his son; but
even this fretted her. As time went on, she came more and more to
dislike her and to wish that she had never come beneath their roof.
So the days flew by, grew into weeks, and Mollie Ainslie was still
at Mulberry Hill, while important events weve happening at Red
Wing.
CHAPTER XXXII.
A VOICE FROM THE DARKNESS.
It was two weeks after Miss Ainslie's involuntary flight from Red
Wing that Nimbus, when he arose one morning, found a large pine
board hung across his gateway. It was perhaps six feet long and
some eighteen or twenty inches wide in the widest part, smoothly
planed upon one side and shaped like a coffin lid. A hole had been
bored in either end, near the upper corner, and through each of
these a stout cord had been passed and tied into a loop, which,
being slipped over a paling, one on each side the gate, left the
board swinging before it so as effectually to bar its opening unless
the board were first removed.
The attention of Nimbus was first directed to it by a neighbor-woman
who, stopping in front of the gate, called out to him in great
excitement, as he sat with Berry Lawson on his porch waiting for
his breakfast:
"Oh, Bre'er Nimbus, what in de libbin' yairth is dis h'yer on your
gate? La sakes, but de Kluckers is after you now, shore 'nough!"
"Why, what's de matter wid yer, Cynthy?" said Nimbus, cheerfully.
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