on a seed-strewn hat appeared
in sight, and then a big head of hair, and then a man's body. The boys
clustered closely together, and when the man turned toward them, they saw
that the roughly-dressed man had a roughly featured face, but its
expression was kindly.

"He will eat uth up," whispered Pip, trying to get behind Billy Grimes.
The stranger was not a cannibal though. He took off his hat, shook it, and
said, "If that was an accident, it's all right. If any one did it, meaning
to do it, was it just the thing?"

The boys felt the appeal and shook their heads.

"We don't justify it, and I'm the president," said Sid, with a look of
importance, "and no one of us that you see did it."

"I hope not. Sometimes folks are not lucky, and if any of your fathers
went trampin' round and couldn't get work, you wouldn't like to have any
body throw hay-seed on him."

"No, that's so," said Charlie. "It's too bad!"

The man turned to go down stairs.

"I--I guess my aunt could give you a job. She wanted somebody this morning
to saw her wood."

"Did she? Where is she?"

"I'll show you," and Charlie's obliging drumsticks followed the man down
stairs. Then he went into the kitchen and made an appeal for the stranger.

"Well, I'll give him the job," replied Aunt Stanshy.

In a minute more the man was at the wood-pile driving Aunt Stanshy's saw
rapidly through a stick of pine.

The club had been looking out of the window while Charlie interceded for
the man. When he joined his clubmates some one exclaimed, "What's that?"

It was a noise from the closet into which Wort had plunged, or, rather, a
noise that started there, for it was continued down into the story below,
even as the noise of a rushing snow-slide along a roof begins at the
ridgepole, but ends on the ground beneath the eaves.

"It's Wort!" said Charlie, excitedly. "O dear! he's gone."

"Gone where?" inquired Sid. "Into the bowels of the earth?"

Charlie's answer was to rush down stairs, followed by the club in a very
hasty and undignified way. There, at the end of a long spout that
terminated eight inches from the floor, was a couple of good-sized legs
squirming to get out. Then Wort's voice was heard, coming from the
interior of the box, "Let me out! Let me out!"

"Can't you _get_ out?" asked the governor.

"No, no! Let me out! Let me out--quick!"

It was even so. Wort must be _let_ out.

"O, Aunt Stanshy, Wort--Wort--is in the fodder-box, and can't get