The more I thought about it, the less I felt like doing it,
though, because really you have no business to ask God to take
care of you, unless you KNOW you are doing right. This was
right, but in my heart I also knew that if Laddie had asked me, I
would be shivering on top of that cordwood on a hot August day,
when it was wrong. On the whole, I thought it would be more
honest to leave God out of it, and take the risk myself. That
made me think of the Crusaders, and the little gold trinket in
father's chest till. There were four shells on it and each one
stood for a trip on foot or horseback to the Holy City when you
had to fight almost every step of the way. Those shells meant
that my father's people had gone four times, so he said; that,
although it was away far back, still each of us had a tiny share
of the blood of the Crusaders in our veins, and that it would
make us brave and strong, and whenever we were afraid, if we
would think of them, we never could do a cowardly thing or let
any one else do one before us. He said any one with Crusader
blood had to be brave as Richard the Lion-hearted. Thinking
about that helped ever so much, so I gripped the note and turned
to take one last look at the house before I made a dash for the
gate that led into the Big Woods.

Beyond our land lay the farm of Jacob Hood, and Mrs. Hood always
teased me because Laddie had gone racing after her when I was
born. She was in the middle of Monday's washing, and the bluing
settled in the rinse water and stained her white clothes in
streaks it took months to bleach out. I always liked Sarah Hood
for coming and dressing me, though, because our Sally, who was
big enough to have done it, was upstairs crying and wouldn't come
down. I liked Laddie too, because he was the only one of our