erries apiece.
You can imagine the state of their little night-dresses, when they were
through with this feast, just a mass of strawberry stain. They were so
small and so quiet, that no one in the store noticed them for some time,
and no one chanced to pass. At last a lady came by, and spied them. Of
course she instantly saw they were runaways, and spoke to them.

"'We isn't yunning away,' Jean insisted, 'we is only going to see
uncle.'

"'But where is your mamma?' persisted the lady.

"'Her's gone to see uncle, too,' said Jean. The lady knew they had
probably run away from some neighbouring house, so she went into the
store to ask a clerk to come and see if he knew them. But while she was
gone, the children slipped away down the side street. The clerk told us
all about this afterwards, for it was a store where my sister often
went.

"Then the little ones probably wandered around a good deal, though we
never knew where, except that they came to some water in a gutter,
somewhere, and took to it like ducks. They must have paddled in it for
some time--'washing their feets,' Jean told us afterwards, as an excuse.

"Of course, by this time they had collected a crowd around them, for
just imagine what they looked like! Nothing on but white
night-dresses--I mean, of course, that were originally white,--but now
spattered a foot deep with muddy water, and stained all over with
crushed strawberries; and they were barefooted, with their golden curls
stuck full of burs, till they looked like little porcupines."

"_Grandma_! how funny! and to think that was mamma," broke in Cricket,
in great enjoyment of the picture.

"They must have looked as badly as Zaidee and Helen did when they came
in from swimming in the tanks at the cheese factory the other day."

"Worse, if anything, because the strawberry stains made them look as if
they had been through the wars, poor little mites. At last a policeman
took them in charge."

"Think of mamma being actually arrested! That's worse than anything
that's ever happened to me," said Cricket.

"That's your good fortune," laughed grandma. "Your wash-rag isn't
getting along very fast, is it? I thought you were going to knit as I
talk."

"Oh, I am! I am!" cried Cricket, scrabbling up her wash-rag, which she
had entirely forgotten. "Go on, grandma."

"So a policeman took them in charge. He said the children didn't seem a
bit frightened, but took everything very coolly, insisting all the