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  PATIENCE ARNOLD'S SAMPLER

  "Count your threads, Patience, child. You will do well to give betterheed to your sewing than to the window. Methinks your eyes have beenfollowing the garden path over often the last half hour, and your workhas suffered the while.

  "Why, when I was a lass in Devon I had stitched six samplers before Iwas your age; and one of them had the entire Lord's prayer upon itembroidered in letters of red so small that your grandame had to don herspectacles in order to spell it out.

  "Ah, well, the girls of to-day are catching the spirit of thetimes--revolt against the old order and small patience with the new. Imust be off, Patience, and across the orchard to Mistress Edwards' witha bowl of curds. She has a mind that they cure her gout. Do you attendyour work while I am gone. The sampler is almost finished. I can readthe text at the top in spite of its crooked letters, dear child:

  "'A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath.'

  "Here are all the letters of the alphabet, too, and now it remains onlyfor you to embroider your name in the cross-stitch. Measure yourstitches with great care, for you will likely begin it so near theborder that you will have small space left for _Arnold_.

  "I shall be back by tea time." Mistress Arnold stooped to touch with onethin, white hand, stripped of all its jewels, the bowed, brown head ofthe little girl who sat by the window sewing.

  "If you finish the sampler by five o'clock, you may go out in the gardenand play. Oh--"

  Mistress Arnold turned in the doorway, and pulled from the green silkreticule which hung at her side, a long iron key.

  "I will leave the key to the barn in your charge, Patience, and on noaccount give it to any one until I return. Your father tells me that hisstore of powder and shot is increasing daily, and we are likely to needthese before long."

  Mistress Arnold sighed as she stepped over the threshold and took herway--a tall, straight figure in gray crinoline--between the pink cloudsthat the apple blooms made, and then out of sight.

  Small Patience Arnold, a little brown-eyed lass who had seen eightsummers in the quaint, white-walled town of Lexington, watched hermother. Then she leaned back in the stiff, wooden chair that was so muchtoo high for her, drawing a weary little sigh. It was very dull, indeed,and stupid to stay in the bare kitchen. All outdoors, the first bees,the robins, and the perfume of the apple trees called her. Oh, if shemight only drop her sewing to the floor, and run out to the garden,darting in and out among the trees like a bluebird in her straight frockof indigo-dyed homespun. If she might only sing in her sweet, clearvoice, above the hum of bees and birds, the songs that her motherknew--the songs of merry old England where every one was happy, andeverything was gay!

  But, no, she must not go. There was the square of rough cloth in herhand, and the sticky needle, and the thread that would knot in spite ofPatience's care. Every little girl in Lexington had finished a sampler,and some of them two, by the time they were nine. She must hurry, forthe afternoon was wearing away. Soon the sun would drop behind theorchard. Such a long name it was to sew--Patience Arnold.

  Patience took up her needle again and began to count the stitches andembroider the letters, P. A. T. There were so many of the letters, andthey were very crooked, for all the world like the new minutemen whomher father drilled on the village green when it was dusk. No one saw theminutemen march and countermarch, and no one could hear their feet inthe soft grass. Patience laughed to herself, a merry little trill of alaugh, as she bent over the letters of her work.

  "You are Mistress Anderson's lad who has such long legs and thinks hewill be the captain of the militia some day."

  Patience pointed to the A.

  "And you--" She put her needle in the T.

  But a long shadow lay across the doorsill. There were other shadows onthe grass outside. Where had they come from? Why, the orchard was fullof soldiers. One stood, even now, in front of Patience--a most gallantgentleman in scarlet broadcloth and gold lace, holding his cocked hat inhis hand and smiling down at the little girl.

  "So the bumpkins of this little town of Lexington, too, have taken uponthemselves the gentle art of soldiering. It is high time that hisMajesty interfered."

  The man seemed to speak to himself. Then he bent so low over the littlegirl in her straight-backed chair that the gilt fringe which dangledfrom his epaulets brushed Patience's cheek.

  "Such a pretty little lass, and so industrious, as she sits alone inthis great house--"

  He paused, watching Patience's trembling little brown fingers. She wasfrightened by this emissary of the King. Then he continued, "I would askshelter for my men."

  He pointed to a score of soldiers in red coats who swarmed the dooryardnow, laughing, brawling, and trampling on Mistress Arnold's beds ofsavory herbs.

  "The day is warm, and we have had a long march from Boston town. I wouldthat my men might lie and rest a space on the cool hay of your barn, mylittle lady. We have tried the door, but we find it barred, and the keyis missing from the padlock. Will you give me the key, little maid?"

  Patience bent lower over her work as the last words came from the man'slips. Reaching in her homespun pocket for the key which her mother hadgiven her, she clasped it in her hand and held it underneath the sampleras she stitched the letters once more. For a second she did not speak.It seemed as if her throat was burning. Her lips were dry with fear.Then she looked up, smiling a wistful little smile.

  "No, kind sir. I can not give you the key."

  "Oho, so the little lady is stubborn."

  The man crossed to the door and motioned to the waiting soldiersoutside. In a second they had obeyed his summons, swarming MistressBrewster's clean kitchen and covering the spotless floor with the dustof the high road.

  "Search the house!" commanded their leader. "Yonder stubborn girl istongue-tied, and stubborn. She will neither give up the key, nor tell mewhere it is. Overturn the chests of drawers; tear up the carpets, breakdown the doors, spare nothing, I say, but bring me the key of yonderbarn."

  No sooner were the words spoken than the work of pillage began. Soundsof doors and hinges wrenched from their places, the tramp of rough bootson the floor above her head, the rattle of chests told the frightenedlittle Patience that the work of searching the house had begun. Itseemed to her that the key would burn its way straight through her palm,so hot it was. Her hands trembled, and her eyes filled with tears sothat she could scarcely see her needle. But still she stitched, neverleaving her chair, nor lifting her white little face.

  The soldier who had given the command remained in the kitchen pacingrestlessly up and down, his arms folded, and a frown deepening on hisforehead.

  "P. A. T. I. E. N."--Patience was nearing the edge of the sampler, and itwas with difficulty that she stitched because of the key that layunderneath the cloth. The letters were, indeed, crooked and straggling,and lacking the precision of even those that spelled the text. There wasno sound in the room, now, save the ticking of a tall clock and thetread of the soldier's feet.

  Suddenly the soldier in command stopped in front of Patience's chair andlaid a heavy hand on her little bare, brown arm. He spoke, and the wordswere full of anger.

  "Enough of this nonsense! Give me the key, I say. I will have it!"

  "'GIVE ME THE KEY I SAY'"]

  Patience slipped out of her chair and down to the floor, holding hersampler, covering the hidden key, as high as the man's eyes. He loosedhis grasp upon her arm, looking at her in wonder. Such a little lass, inher straight blue frock, and not as tall as his own little girl inEngland. She had the same soft eyes, though, and the same low, sweetvoice.

  "I would gladly give you what you wish, sir," she began bravely, "but Ipromised my mother I would deliver the key to no one until she returned.Look!" She held the sampler still higher. "I am stitching my name. Is itnot a stupid task on such a pretty day?"

  "_A soft answer turneth away wrath._" The man read the text at the topof the sampler. Then he looked out of the window and farther than theapple trees.
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  "It is indeed neatly stitched, little lass," he said. "My own Elizabethis even now making her sampler, and wetting it with tears until I returnto her, overseas."

  He gave a quick command to his men, who filed down the stairs, emptyhanded, and into the garden. Then he raised his hat in salute, andfollowed them as they marched slowly down the road and farther thanPatience could see.

  "My little girl--my Patience--are you safe?"

  It was Mistress Arnold who ran across the orchard and into the kitchen,clasping the trembling little lass in her arms. "We saw the red coatsfrom Mistress Brewster's window and knew that they had been here. Butyou are unharmed--and the guns--the powder?"

  "I spoiled my sampler, mother," Patience gave a sobbing laugh as sheheld up her work with the crookedly stitched ending, and the unfinishedname. "It is as you feared. I started my name too near the border andthere is no room to finish it, but"--she held out the precious bit ofiron, "here is the key."

  Sampler

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