n followed with Patty; and after him came the twins, with
their teeth firmly set.

"Quick! quick!" screamed Squire Lyman. "Run for your lives!"

"Run! run!" echoed the people on both banks; but Mr. Griggs's tongue
clove to the roof of his mouth.

The roaring torrent and the high wind together were rocking the bridge
like a cradle. If it had not been for Patty! All the rest could run. It
seemed as if the mud on the child's shoes had turned to lead. She hung,
crying and struggling, a dead weight between Moses and Mary, who pulled
her forward, without letting her little toddling feet touch the ground.

The small procession of five, how eagerly everybody watched it! The poor
toll-gatherer, if he had had the courage, would have run after the
children, and snatched them back from their doom. Every looker-on was
anxious; yet all the anxiety of the multitude could not equal the
agonizing suspense in that one father's heart. He thought he knew the
strength of the piers; he thought he could tell how long they would
stand against the ice; but what if he had made a mistake?

The children did not get on quite as fast as he had expected. Every
moment seemed an age, for they were running for their lives!

It was over at last, the bridge was crossed, the children were safe!

The toll-gatherer, and the other people on the bank, set up a shout; but
Squire Lyman could not speak. He seized Dr. Potter by the shoulder, and
sank back against him, almost fainting.

"Papa! O, papa!" cried Patty, whose little heart scarcely beat any
faster than usual, in spite of all the fuss she had made, "I couldn't
help but laugh!"

This little speech, so babyish and "Patty-like," brought Squire Lyman to
himself, and he hugged the silly creature as if she stood for the whole
five children.

"Father, it was a tough one, I tell you," said Silas.

"O, father," said Moses, "if you knew how we trembled! With that baby to
pull over, too!"

"I'll tell you what I thought," said Mary, catching her breath. "I
though my father knew more than the toll-gatherer, and all the other
men. But anyway, if he didn't know, I'd have done what he said."

"Bravo for my Polly," said Squire Lyman, wiping his eyes.

Just half an hour after this, when they were all safe at home, the
bridge was snapped in two, and went reeling down stream. Squire Lyman
closed his eyes and shuddered. Of course no one could help thinking what
might have happened if the children had been a l