She heard voices shouting
to her, in reality the voices of the negroes who had gone down to the
tobacco fields, calling to her to turn back. But, in her excitement she
thought they were war cries, and ran as fast as she could away from them.
"Let's go to the play-house under the hill, Mam' Sarah," said quick-witted
Roberta.
That play-house was a rocky recess, once the bed of some subterranean
stream, and protected from view by a sycamore's gnarled, knotted branches
extending down, and hung with matted wild grape tendrils. Mam' Sarah had
often gone down there and spread her linen on the grass to bleach, and she
generally took the children along for company. That's how they happened to
find out the rocky recess or cave, for it ran under the hill a
considerable distance. They hadn't been in there long before a shadow
darkened the entrance to the recess. A figure crept toward them with the
muzzle of a gun pointing straight at them.
"O, don't shoot!" they cried in terror.
"I won't," responded a boyish voice, and when their tears subsided they
saw it was a mere lad, wounded and bleeding.
"Are you much hurt?" asked Roberta.
"O, no; just a scratch.
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