Chapter 1

Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly

The Green Door

By

Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

Illustrated by Mary R. Bassett

New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1931

Letitia lived in the same house where her grandmother and her great-grandmother had lived and died. Her own parents died when she was very young, and she had come there to live with her Great-aunt Peggy. Her Great-aunt Peggy was her grandfather's sister, and was a very old woman. However, she was very active and bright, and good company for Letitia. That was fortunate, because there were no little girls of Letitia's age nearer than a mile. The one maid-servant whom Aunt Peggy kept was older than she, and had chronic rheumatism in the right foot and left shoulder-blade, which affected her temper.

Letitia's Great-aunt Peggy used to play grace-hoops with her, and dominoes and checkers, and even dolls. Sometimes it was hard for Letitia to realize that she was not another little girl. Her Aunt Peggy was very kind to her and fond of her, and took care of her as well as her own mother could have done. Letitia had all the care and comforts and pleasant society that she really needed, but she was not a very contented little girl. She was naturally rather idle, and her Aunt Peggy, who was a wise old woman and believed thoroughly in the proverb about Satan and idle hands, would keep her always busy at something.

If she were not playing, she had to sew or study or dust, or read a stent in a story-book. Letitia had very nice story-books, but she was not particularly fond of reading. She liked best of anything to sit quite idle, and plan what she would like to do if she could have her wish--and that her Aunt Peggy would not allow.

Letitia was not satisfied with her dolls and little treasures. She wanted new ones. She wanted fine clothes like one little girl, and plenty of candy like another. When Letitia went to school she always came home more dissatisfied. She wanted her room newly furnished, and thought the furniture in the whole house very shabby. She disliked to rise so early in the morning. She did not like to take a walk every day, and besides everything else to make her discontented, there was the little green door, which she must never open and pass through.

The house where Letitia lived was, of course, a very old one. It had a roof, saggy and mossy, gray shingles in the walls, lilac bushes half hiding the great windows, and a well-sweep in the yard. It was quite a large house, and there were sheds and a great barn attached to it, but they were all on the side. At the back of the house the fields stretched away for acres, and there were no outbuildings. The little green door was at the very back of the house, toward the fields, in a room opening out of the kitchen. It was called the cheese-room, because Letitia's grandmother, who had made cheeses, had kept them there. She fancied she could smell cheese, though none had been there for years, and it was used now only for a lumber-room. She always sniffed hard for cheese, and then she eyed the little green door with wonder and longing. It was a small green door, scarcely higher than her head. A grown person could not have passed through without stooping almost double. It was very narrow, too, and no one who was not slender could have squeezed through it. In this door there was a little black keyhole, with no key in it, but it was always locked. Letitia knew that her Aunt Peggy kept the key in some very safe place, but she would never show it to her, nor unlock the door.

"It is not best for you, my dear," she always replied, when Letitia teased her; and when Letitia begged only to know why she could not go out of the door, she made the same reply, "It is not best for you, my dear."

Sometimes, when Aunt Peggy was not by, Letitia would tease the old maid-servant about the little green door, but she always seemed both cross and stupid, and gave her no satisfaction. She even seemed to think there was no little green door there; but that was nonsense, because Letitia knew there was. Her curiosity grew greater and greater; she took every chance she could get to steal into the cheese-room and shake the door softly, but it was always locked. She even tried to look through the key-hole, but she could see nothing. One thing puzzled her more than all, and that was that the little green door was on the inside of the house only, and not on the outside. When Letitia went out in the field behind the house, there was nothing but the blank wall to be seen. There was no sign of a door in it. But the cheese-room was certainly the last room in the house, and the little green door was in the rear wall. When Letitia asked her Great-aunt Peggy to explain that, she only got the same answer:

"It is not best for you to know, my dear."

Letitia studied the little green door more than she studied her lesson-books, but she never got any nearer the solution of the mystery, until one Sunday morning in January. It was a very cold day, and she had begged hard to stay home from church. Her Aunt Peggy and the maid-servant, old as they were, were going, but Letitia shivered and coughed a little and pleaded, and finally had her own way.

"But you must sit down quietly," charged Aunt Peggy, "and you must learn your texts, to repeat to me when I get home."

After Aunt Peggy and the old servant, in their great cloaks and bonnets and fur tippets, had gone out of the yard and down the road, Letitia sat quiet for fifteen minutes or so, hunting in the Bible for easy texts; then suddenly she thought of the little green door, and wondered, as she had done so many times before, if it could possibly be opened. She laid down her Bible and stole out through the kitchen to the cheese-room and tried the door. It was locked just as usual. "Oh, dear!" sighed Letitia, and was ready to cry. It seemed to her that this little green door was the very worst of all her trials; that she would rather open that and see what was beyond than have all the nice things she wanted and had to do without.

Suddenly she thought of a little satin-wood box with a picture on the lid which Aunt Peggy kept in her top bureau-drawer. Letitia had often seen this box, but had never been allowed to open it.

"I wonder if the key can be in that box," said she.

She did not wait a minute. She was so naughty that she dared not wait for fear she should remember that she ought to be good. She ran out of the cheese-room, through the kitchen and sitting-room, to her aunt's bedroom, and opened the bureau drawer, and then the satin-wood box. It contained some bits of old lace, an old brooch, a yellow letter, some other things which she did not examine, and, sure enough, a little black key on a green ribbon.

Letitia had not a doubt that it was the key of the little green door. She trembled all over, she panted for breath, she was so frightened, but she did not hesitate. She took the key and ran back to the cheese-room. She did not stop to shut the satin-wood box or the bureau drawer. She was so cold and her hands shook so that she had some difficulty in fitting the key into the lock of the little green door; but at last she succeeded, and turned it quite easily. Then, for a second, she hesitated; she was almost afraid to open the door; she put her hand on the latch and drew it back. It seemed to her, too, that she heard strange, alarming sounds on the other side. Finally, with a great effort of her will, she unlatched the little green door, and flung it open and ran out.

Then she gave a scream of surprise and terror, and stood still staring. She did not dare stir nor breathe. She was not in the open fields which she had always seen behind the house. She was in the midst of a gloomy forest of trees so tall that she could just see the wintry sky through their tops. She was hemmed in, too, by a wide, hooping undergrowth of bushes and brambles, all stiff with snow. There was something dreadful and ghastly about this forest, which had the breathless odor of a cellar. And suddenly Letitia heard again those strange sounds she had heard before coming out, and she knew that they were savage whoops of Indians, just as she had read about them in her history-book, and she saw also dark forms skulking about behind the trees, as she had read.

Then Letitia, wild with fright, turned to run back into the house through the little green door, but there was no little green door, and, more than that, there was no house. Nothing was to be seen but the forest and a bridle-path leading through it.

Letitia gasped. She could not believe her eyes. She ran out into the path and down it a little way, but there was no house. The dreadful yells sounded nearer. She looked wildly at the undergrowth beside the path, wondering if she could hide under that, when suddenly she heard a gun-shot and the tramp of a horse's feet. She sprang aside just as a great horse, with a woman and two little girls on his back, came plunging down the bridle-path and passed her. Then there was another gun-shot, and a man, with a wide cape flying back like black wings, came rushing down the path. Letitia gave a little cry, and he heard her.

"Who are you?" he cried breathlessly. Then, without waiting for an answer, he caught her up and bore her along with him. "Don't speak," he panted in her ear. "The Indians are upon us, but we're almost home!"

Then all at once a log-house appeared beside the path, and someone was holding the door ajar, and a white face was peering out. The door was flung open wide as they came up, the man rushed in, set Letitia down, shut the door with a crash, and shot some heavy bolts at top and bottom.

Letitia was so dazed that she scarcely knew what happened for the next few minutes. She saw there a pale-faced woman and three girls, one about her own age, two a little younger. She saw, to her great amazement, the horse tied in the corner. She saw that the door was of mighty thickness, and, moreover, hasped with iron and studded with great iron nails, so that some rattling blows that were rained upon it presently had no effect. She saw three guns set in loopholes in the walls, and the man, the woman, and the girl of her own age firing them, with great reports which made the house quake, while the younger girls raced from one to the other with powder and bullets. Still, she was not sure she saw right, it was all so strange. She stood back in a corner, out of the way, and waited, trembling, and at last the fierce yells outside died away, and the firing stopped.

"They have fled," said the woman with a thankful sigh.

"Yes," said the man, "we are delivered once more out of the hands of the enemy."

"We must not unbar the door or the shutters yet," said the woman anxiously. "I will get the supper by candle-light."

Then Letitia realized what she had not done before, that all the daylight was shut out of the house; that they had for light only one tallow candle and a low hearth fire. It was very cold. Letitia began to shiver with cold as well as fear.

Suddenly the woman turned to her with motherly kindness and curiosity. "Who is this little damsel whom you rescued, husband?" said she.

"She must speak for herself," replied her husband, smiling. "I thought at first she was neighbor Adams's Phoebe, but I see she is not."

"What is your name, little girl?" asked the woman, while the three little girls looked wonderingly at the new-comer.

"Letitia Hopkins," replied Letitia in a small, scared voice.

"Letitia Hopkins, did you say?" asked the woman doubtfully.

"Yes, ma'am."

They all stared at her, then at one another.

"It is very strange," said the woman finally, with a puzzled, half-alarmed look. "Letitia Hopkins is my name."

"And it is mine, too," said the eldest girl.

Letitia gave a great jump. There was something very strange about this. Letitia Hopkins was a family name. Her grandmother, her father's mother, had been Letitia Hopkins, and she had always heard that the name could be traced back in the same order for generations, as the Hopkinses had intermarried. She looked up, trembling, at the man who had saved her from the Indians.

"Will you please tell me your name, sir?" she said.

"John Hopkins," replied the man, smiling kindly at her.

"Captain John Hopkins," corrected his wife.

Letitia gasped. That settled it. Captain John Hopkins was her great-great-great-grandfather. Great-aunt Peggy had often told her about him. He had been a notable man in his day, among the first settlers, and many a story concerning him had come down to his descendants. A queer miniature of him, in a little gilt frame, hung in the best parlor, and Letitia had often looked at it. She had thought from the first that there was something familiar about the man's face, and now she recognized the likeness to the miniature.

It seemed awful, and impossible, but the little green door led into the past, and Letitia Hopkins was visiting her great-great-great- grandfather and grandmother, great-great-grandmother, and her great-great-aunts.

Letitia looked up in the faces, all staring wonderingly at her, and all of them had that familiar look, though she had no miniature of the others. Suddenly she knew that it was a likeness to her own face which she recognized, and it was as if she saw herself in a looking-glass. She felt as if her head was turning round and round, and presently her feet began to follow the motion of her head, then strong arms caught her, or she would have fallen.

When Letitia came to herself again, she was in a great feather bed, in the unfinished loft of the log-house. The wind blew in her face, a great star shone in her eyes. She thought at first she was out of doors. Then she heard a kind but commanding voice repeating: "Open your mouth," and stared up wildly into her great-great-great-grandmother's face, then around the strange little garret, lighted with a wisp of rag in a pewter dish of tallow, and the stars shining through the crack in the logs. Not a bit of furniture was there in the room, besides the bed and an oak chest. Some queer-looking garments hung about on pegs and swung in the draughts of the wind. It must have been snowing outside, for little piles of snow were scattered here and there about the room.

"Where--am--I?" Letitia asked feebly, but no sooner had she opened her mouth than her great-great-great-grandmother, Goodwife Hopkins, who had been watching her chance, popped in the pewter spoon full of some horribly black and bitter medicine.

Letitia nearly choked.

"Swallow it," said Goodwife Hopkins. "You swooned away, and it is good physic. It will soon make you well."

Goodwife Hopkins had a kind and motherly way, but a way from which there was no appeal. Letitia swallowed the bitter dose.

"Now go to sleep," ordered Goodwife Hopkins.

Letitia went to sleep. There might have been something quieting to the nerves in the good physic. She was awakened a little later by her great-great-grandmother and her two great-great-aunts coming to bed. They were to sleep with her. There were only two beds in Captain John Hopkins's house.

Letitia had never slept four in a bed before. There was not much room. She had to turn herself about crosswise, and then her toes stuck into the icy air, unless she kept them well pulled up. But soon she fell asleep again.

About midnight she was awakened by wild cries in the woods outside, and lay a minute, numb with fright, before she remembered where she was. Then she nudged her great-great-grandmother, Letitia, who lay next her.

"What's that?" she whispered fearfully.

"Oh, it's nothing but a catamount. Go to sleep again," said her great-great-grandmother sleepily. Her great-great-aunt, Phyllis, the youngest of them all, laughed on the other side.

"She's afraid of a catamount," said she.

Letitia could not go to sleep for a long while, for the wild cries continued, and she thought several times that the catamount was scratching up the walls of the house. When she did fall asleep it was not for long, for the fierce yells she had heard when she had first opened her little green door sounded again in her ears.

This time she did not need to wake her great-great-grandmother, who sat straight up in bed at the first sound.

"What's that?" whispered Letitia.

"Hush!" replied the other. "Injuns!"

Both the great-great-aunts were awake; they all listened, scarcely breathing. The yells came again, but fainter; then again, and fainter still. Letitia's great-great-grandmother settled back in bed again.

"Go to sleep now," said she. "They've gone away."

But Letitia was weeping with fright. "I can't go to sleep," she sobbed. "I'm afraid they'll come again."

"Very likely they will," replied the other Letitia coolly. "They come 'most every night."

The little great-great-aunt Phyllis laughed again. "She can't go to sleep because she heard Injuns," she tittered.

"Hush," said her sister Letitia, "she'll get accustomed to them in time."

But poor Letitia slept no more till four o'clock. Then she had just fallen into a sweet doze when she was pulled out of bed.

"Come, come," said her great-great-great-grandmother, Goodwife Hopkins, "we can have no lazy damsels here."

Letitia found that her bedfellows were up and dressed and downstairs. She heard a queer buzzing sound from below, as she stood in her bare feet on the icy floor and gazed about her, dizzy with sleep.

"Hasten and dress yourself," said Goodwife Hopkins. "Here are some of Letitia's garments I have laid out for you. Those which you wore here I have put away in the chest. They are too gay, and do not befit a sober, God-fearing damsel."

With that, Goodwife Hopkins descended to the room below, and Letitia dressed herself. It did not take her long. There was not much to put on beside a coarse wool petticoat and a straight little wool gown, rough yarn stockings, and such shoes as she had never seen.

"I couldn't run from Injuns in these," thought Letitia miserably. When she got downstairs she discovered what the buzzing noise was. Her great-great-grandmother was spinning. Her great-great-aunt Candace was knitting, and little Phyllis was scouring the hearth. Goodwife Hopkins was preparing breakfast.

"Go to the other wheel," said she to Letitia, "and spin until the porridge is done. We can have no idle hands here."

Letitia looked helplessly at a great spinning-wheel in the corner, then at her great-great-great-grandmother.

"I don't know how," she faltered.

Then all the great-grandmothers and the aunts cried out with astonishment.

"She doesn't know how to spin!" they said to one another.

Letitia felt dreadfully ashamed.

"You must have been strangely brought up," said Goodwife Hopkins. "Well, take this stocking and round out the toe. There will be just about time enough for that before breakfast."

"I don't know how to knit," stammered Letitia.

Then there was another cry of astonishment. Goodwife Hopkins cast about her for another task for this ignorant guest.

"Explain the doctrine of predestination," said she suddenly.

Letitia jumped up and stared at her with scared eyes.

"Don't you know what predestination is?" demanded Goodwife Hopkins.

"No, ma'am," half sobbed Letitia.

Her great-great-grandmother and her great-great-aunts made shocked exclamations, and her great-great-great-grandmother looked at her with horror. "You have been brought up as one of the heathen," said she. Then she produced a small book, and Letitia was bidden to seat herself upon a stool and learn the doctrine of predestination before breakfast.

The kitchen was lighted only by one tallow candle and the firelight, for it was still far from dawn. Letitia drew her little stool close to the hearth, and bent anxiously over the fire-lit page. She committed to memory easily, and repeated the text like a frightened parrot when she was called upon.

"The child has good parts, though she is woefully ignorant," said Goodwife Hopkins aside to her husband. "It shall be my care to instruct her."

Letitia, having completed her task, was given her breakfast. It was only a portion of corn-meal porridge in a pewter plate. She had never had such a strange breakfast in her life, and she did not like corn-meal. She sat with it untasted before her.

"Why don't you eat?" asked her great-great-great-grandmother severely.

"I--don't--like--it," faltered Letitia.

If possible, they were all more shocked by that than they had been by her ignorance.

"She doesn't like the good porridge," the little great-great-aunts said to each other.

"Eat the porridge," commanded Captain John Hopkins sternly, when he had gotten over his surprise.

Letitia ate the porridge, every grain of it. After breakfast the serious work of the day began. Letitia had never known anything like it. She felt like a baby who had just come into a new world. She was ignorant of everything that these strange relatives knew. It made no difference that she knew some things which they did not, some advanced things. She could, for instance, crochet, if she could not knit. She could repeat the multiplication-table, if she did not know the doctrine of predestination; she had also all the States of the Union by heart. But advanced knowledge is not of as much value in the past as past knowledge in the future. She could not crochet, because there was no crochet needles; there were no States of the Union; and it seemed doubtful if there was a multiplication-table, there was so little to multiply.

So Letitia had set herself to acquiring the wisdom of her ancestors. She learned to card, and hetchel, and spin and weave. She learned to dye cloth, and make coarse garments, even for her great-great-great-grandfather, Captain John Hopkins. She knitted yarn stockings, she scoured brass and pewter, and, more than all, she learned the entire catechism. Letitia had never really known what work was. From long before dawn until long after dark, she toiled. She was not allowed to spend one idle moment. She had no chance to steal out and search for the little green door, even had she not been so afraid of wild beasts and Indians.

She never went out of the house except on the Sabbath day. Then, in fair or foul weather, they all went to meeting, ten miles through the dense forest. Captain John Hopkins strode ahead, his gun over his shoulder. Goodwife Hopkins rode the gray horse, and the girls rode by turns, two at a time, clinging to the pillion at her back. Letitia was never allowed to wear her own pretty plain dress, with the velvet collar, even to meeting.

"It would create a scandal in the sanctuary," said Goodwife Hopkins. So Letitia went always in the queer little coarse and scanty gown, which seemed to her more like a bag than anything else; and for outside wraps she had--of all things--a homespun blanket pinned over her head. Her great-great-grandmother and her great-great-aunts were all fitted out in a similar fashion. Goodwife Hopkins, however, had a great wadded hood and a fine red cloak.

There was never any fire in the meeting-house, and the services lasted all day, with a short recess at noon, during which they went into a neighboring house, sat round the fire, warmed their half frozen feet, and ate cold corn-cakes and pan-cakes for luncheon. There were no pews in the meeting-house, nothing but hard benches without backs. If Letitia fidgetted, or fell asleep, the tithing-men rapped her. Letitia would never have been allowed to stay away from meeting, had she begged to do so, but she never did. She was afraid to stay alone in the house because of Indians.

Quite often there was a rumor of hostile Indians in the neighborhood, and twice there were attacks. Letitia learned to load the guns and hand the powder and bullets.