ervation, had been
found in the woodshed. The pump yielded, unhesitatingly, any amount of
delicious cold water, and though three eggs did look surprisingly small
in the bottom of the pail, they boiled quite as well as if they'd been
in a saucepan.

"Only think of all the kettles and things I brought!" Felicia mourned.
"We'll have to buy some plates and cups, though, Ken." Most of the
Sturgis china was reposing in a well-packed barrel in a room over Mr.
Dodge's garage, accompanied by many other things for which their owners
longed.

"How the dickens do we capture the eggs!" Ken demanded. "Pigs in
clover's not in it. Lend a hand, Phil!"

CHAPTER V

THE WHEELS BEGIN TO TURN

Ken walked to Asquam almost immediately after breakfast, and Felicia
explored their new abode most thoroughly, inside and out. Corners and
steps there were in plenty, as Kirk had said; it seemed as if the house
had been built in several pieces and patched together. Two biggish rooms
downstairs, besides the kitchen; a large, built-in, white-doored closet
in the living-room,--quite jolly, Felicia thought,--rusty nails driven
in unbelievable quantities in all the walls. She couldn't imagine how
any one could have wanted to hang anything in some of the queer places
where nails sprouted, and she longed to get at them with a claw-hammer.

Upstairs there was one big room (for Ken and Kirk, Phil thought), a
little one for herself, and what she immediately named "The Poke-Hole"
for trunks and such things. When Mother came home, as come she must, the
extra downstairs room could be fitted up for her, Felicia decided--or
the boys could take it over for themselves. The upstairs rooms were all
under the eaves, and, at present, were hot and musty. Felicia pounded
open the windows which had small, old-fashioned panes, somewhat lacking
in putty. In came the good April air fresh after the murk of yesterday,
and smelling of salt, and heathy grass, and spring. It summoned Felicia
peremptorily, and she ran downstairs and out to look at the "ten acres
of land, peach and apple orchards."

Kirk went, too, his hand in hers.

"It's an easy house," he confided. "You'd think it would be hard, but
the floor's different all over--bumpy, and as soon as I find out which
bump means what, I'll know how to go all over the place. I dare say it's
the same out here."

Felicia was not so sure. It seemed a trackless waste of blown grass for
one to navigate in the dark. It