"Gee, gosh!" he muttered, heartily, as he rose a second time.

Both the well-spread pallor of the whitewash and the sable sprinkling of
coal dust put him beyond any chance of a felicitous public appearance.
But he was safe in a dusky corner. He remained there, breathing heavily.
At last he heard Winona call him from the Penniman porch. Twice she
called; then he knew she would be crossing to the little house to know
what detained him. He heard her call again--knew that she would be
searching the four rooms over there. She wouldn't think of the woodshed.
He sat there a long while, steadily regarding the closed screen door
that led to the kitchen, ready to mingle deceptively with the coal
should any one appear.

At last he heard a bustle within the house. There were hurried steppings
to and fro by Winona and her mother, the heavy tread of the judge, a
murmur of high voices. The Whipples must have come, and every one would
be at the front of the house. He crept from his corner, climbed to the
floor from where it had been opened for wood and coal, and went softly
to the kitchen door. He listened a moment through the screen, then
entered and went noiselessly up the back stairs. Coming to the head of
the front stairway, he listened again. There were other voices in front,
and he shrank to the wall. He gathered that only the Whipple stepmother
and Patricia had come--no other Whipples, no preacher. It might not have
been so bad. Still he didn't want to be there.

They were at the front door now, headed for the parlour. Someone paused
at the foot of the stairs, and in quick alarm he darted along the hall
and into an open door. He was in the neat bedroom of Winona,
shortbreathed, made doubly nervous by boards that had creaked under his
tread. He stood listening. They were in the parlour, a babble of voices
coming up to him; excited voices, but not funeral voices. His eyes roved
the chamber of Winona, where everything was precisely in its place. He
mapped out a dive under her bed if steps came up the stairs. He heard
now the piping voice of Patricia Whipple.

"It's like in the book about Ben Blunt that was adopted by a kind old
gentleman and went up from rags to riches."

This for some reason seemed to cause laughter below.

He heard, from Winona: "Do try a piece of Mother's cake. Merle, dear,
give Mrs. Whipple a plate and napkin."

Cake! Certainly nothing like cake for this occasion had been intimated
to him! They hadn't h