"Jimmy's play" to think of just now. It helped her through
that long forenoon. After this the forenoons did not drag; school went
on as usual, and Kyzie was glad she had had the courage to go back and
"live down" her foolish behavior.

When they met in Aunt Vi's room that evening it was decided not to have
"Jimmy's play" on the tailings, for that was a place free to all. People
would not buy tickets for an entertainment out of doors.

"My tent is the thing," said Uncle James, and so they all thought It
was a large white one, and the children agreed to decorate it with
evergreens. It would hold all the people who were likely to come and
many more.

During the week Uncle James set up the tent not far from the hotel and
in one corner of it built a staging. He did not mind taking trouble for
his beloved namesake, James Sanford Dunlee. The stage was made to look
like a room in an old-fashioned house. It had a make-believe door and
window and a make-believe fireplace with andirons and wood and shovel
and tongs. There was a rag rug on the floor, and on the three-legged
stand stood the hour-glass with candles in iron candlesticks. The
fiddle-backed chairs were there and two _hard_ "easy-chairs" and an old
wooden "settle." Lucy and Bab said it looked "like somebody's house,"
and they wanted to go and live in it.

On the Saturday afternoon appointed the play had been well learned by
the four actors. Everything being ready, this cosy little sitting-room
was now shut off from view by a calico curtain which was stretched
across the stage by long strings run through brass rings.

The play would begin at half-past two. Jimmy was dressed neatly in his
very best clothes. He had a roll of paper and a pencil in one of his
pockets and during the play he meant to add up the number of people
present and find out how much money had been taken.

"But Jimmy-boy, it won't be very much," said Edith. "This is an empty
town, and so queer too. Something may happen at the last minute that
will spoil the whole thing."

She was right. Something did happen which no one could have foreseen.
For an "empty" town Castle Cliff was famous for events.

As Jimmy left the hotel just after luncheon he overtook Nate Pollard
and Joe Rolfe standing near a big sand bank, talking together earnestly.

"Come on, Jimmum," said Nate; "we've got a spade for you. We're going to
dig a cave in the side of this bank."

"What's the use of a cave?"

"Why, for one th