shook her head, “I reckon they jes’ moved away,” she said.
It was now nearly noon, and Berry realized that she must get home as soon as possible; so reminding Mollie that “school” would begin the next morning, she bade them good-bye.
As soon as she had left the Bragg cabin Berry’s thoughts flew back to the man she had encountered that morning. Although she had not spoken of him to Mrs. Bragg, for some reason that she could not easily account for, she was now eager to reach home and tell her father and mother of the stranger who had taken her for a boy, and who had threatened her.
“I’ll go home another path,” she decided. “I37 never want to see that man again,” and she made her way up the crest of the ridge, circling about thick growths of trees and underbrush, and coming into the trail that led to the cabin a mile above the place where she had encountered the stranger.
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38
CHAPTER III SCHOOL
It was with a grave face that Mr. Arnold listened to Berry’s story of her morning’s adventure at the brook; and her mother instantly declared that Berry could no longer run about alone. “The man was probably a Confederate spy,” she said anxiously, “and if he had discovered that a family from New England were living near by, that, instead of being a little boy of Tennessee, you were a little Yankee girl, we cannot tell what would have happened.”
“Yes, I believe the man has been traveling along the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers looking over the Confederate line of defense, and his saying he might return this way in the spring may mean that the Confederates fear an attack will be made upon Fort Henry or Fort Donelson. If the Union army could capture these forts and open the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, the Confederate line of defense would be39 destroyed,” said Mr. Arnold thoughtfully; and Mrs. Arnold instantly added, “We surely need not fear any battle taking place near this remote spot, but with spies everywhere we must take all possible precautions. I hope you did not tell the Braggs of meeting a stranger, Berry?” she added.
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“No; I didn’t
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