You'd be under shelter there, and if so be as your uncle should come
this way, he'd never find you there."

Instead of conferring a favour, she found herself almost asking the
child to stay, and to Huldah the temptation was too great to be
resisted. To be safe from her uncle! She felt she could bear
anything, if she could only for a few hours feel quite safe.
She was so tired, too, so dead-tired, she did not know, in spite of
her brave words, how she could possibly drag her weary body a step
further.

A few moments later the front-door had been securely bolted, and Mrs.
Perry, lantern in hand, was conducting her two strange visitors out
of the back door and down the garden.

"That's the fowls' house," she explained, flashing her lantern over
the door of the little building as they passed it, "and here is the
barn."

She opened the door, and threw the lantern light all over the wooden
shed. It was spotlessly clean, and sweet with the smell of the straw
which was scattered about one end of it. There were some bundles and
some loose straw lying on the ground. Huldah sank down on one of the
bundles with a little cry of relief, while Dick burrowed delightedly
in the loose straw.

"You won't be afraid, you think?"

"No, ma'am, thank you, not with Dick," she answered, bravely.