"I had a pine knot, but I flung it away when I heard the noises."

"A pine knot, and Injuns around, and you with naught but a scalping
knife? 'Tis not bravery but tomfoolery," said the elder Letitia.
"I'll warrant you stole out without the knowledge of Goodman Cephas
Holbrook and Mistress Holbrook, and they having taken you in as they
did and given you food and shelter, with nine of their own to care
for, and not knowing of a certainty who you might be."

Letitia felt sure that the boy hung his head in the darkness. He
mumbled something incoherent.

"It was out of the window in the lean-to you got, and ran away,"
declared the elder Letitia severely. "You are not a boy to be
trusted. You can remain here with Letitia, and I will stand guard a
little way down the path; and do not speak above a whisper, although
I be sure there be none but catamounts to hear."

With that, Great-great-grandmother Letitia, musket over shoulder,
moved down the path and stood quite concealed as if by a vast cloak
of night, an alert vigilant young figure with the hot blood of her
time leaping in her veins, and the shrewd brain of her time alive to
everything which might stir that darkness with sound or light.

"Who are you?" whispered Letitia to the boy.

"I am Josephus Peabody, but I was always called Joe till I came
here," the boy whispered back.