"A fine boy," she said, at length, "and my own boy's good friend!" Then
she smiled tenderly and kissed him on the forehead. Jeremy was then and
there won over. All women were angels of light to him from that moment.

That night, alone in the white wilderness of his first four-poster, the
poor New England boy missed his mother very hard, more perhaps than he
had ever missed her before. He fell asleep on a pillow that was wet in
spots--and he was not ashamed.

In the days that followed nothing in Delaware Colony was too good for
the young heroes. Jeremy could never understand just _why_ they were
heroes, but was forced to give up trying to explain the matter to an
admiring populace. As for Bob, he gleefully accepted all the glory that
was offered and at last persuaded Jeremy to take the affair as
philosophically as himself. They were in a fair way to be spoiled, but
fortunately there was enough sense of humor between them to bring them
off safe from the head-patting gentlemen and tearfully rapturous ladies
who gathered at the brick house of afternoons.

Perhaps the thing that really saved them from the effects of too much
petting was the trip up the Brandywine to the Curtis plantation. It was
a fine ride of thirty miles and the trail led through woods just turning
red and yellow with the autumn frosts. Jeremy, though he had been on a
horse only half a dozen times in his life, was a natural athlete and
without fear. He was quick to learn and imitated Bob's erect carriage
and easy seat so well that long before they had reached their journey's
end he backed his tall roan like an old-timer. With Job it was a
different matter. He was all sailor, and though the times demanded that
every man who travelled cross-country must do it in the saddle, the lank
New Englander would have ridden a gale any day in preference to a steed.
Even Jeremy could afford to laugh at the sorry figure his big friend
made.

The trail they followed was no more than a rough cutting, eight or ten
feet wide, running through the forest. Here and there paths branched off
to right or left and up one of these Bob turned at noon. It led them
over a wooded hill, then down a long slope into the valley of a stream.
"John Cantwell's plantation. We'll stop here for a bite to eat,"
explained the boy. By the water side, in a wide clearing, was a group of
log huts and farther along, a square house built of rough gray stone.

They rode up to the wide door which l