posed using a gouge, if they would choose the right spot to begin.

[Illustration]

The little boys were delighted with the plan, and hastened to
find,--one, a little hatchet, and the other a gimlet. Even Amanda
armed herself with a poker.

"It would be better to begin on the ground floor," said Mr. Peterkin.

"Except that we may meet with a stone foundation," said Solomon John.

[Illustration]

"If the wall is thinner upstairs," said Agamemnon, "it will do as well
to cut a window as a door, and haul up anything the butcher may bring
below in his cart."

Everybody began to pound a little on the wall to find a favorable
place, and there was a great deal of noise. The little boys actually
cut a bit out of the plastering with their hatchet and gimlet. Solomon
John confided to Elizabeth Eliza that it reminded him of stories of
prisoners who cut themselves free, through stone walls, after days and
days of secret labor.

[Illustration]

Mrs. Peterkin, even, had come with a pair of tongs in her hand. She
was interrupted by a voice behind her.

"Here's your leg of mutton, marm!"

It was the butcher. How had he got in?

"Excuse me, marm, for coming in at the side door, but the back gate is
kinder blocked up. You were making such a pounding I could not make
anybody hear me knock at the side door."

"But how did you make a path to the door?" asked Mr. Peterkin. "You
must have been working at it a long time. It must be near noon now."

[Illustration]

"I'm about on regular time," answered the butcher. "The town team has
cleared out the high road, and the wind has been down the last
half-hour. The storm is over."

True enough! The Peterkins had been so busy inside the house they had
not noticed the ceasing of the storm outside.

"And we were all up an hour earlier than usual," said Mr. Peterkin,
when the butcher left. He had not explained to the butcher why he had
a pickaxe in his hand.

"If we had lain abed till the usual time," said Solomon John, "we
should have been all right."

"For here is the milkman!" said Elizabeth Eliza, as a knock was now
heard at the side door.

"It is a good thing to learn," said Mr. Peterkin, "not to get up any
earlier than is necessary."

THE PETERKINS DECIDE TO KEEP A COW.

Not that they were fond of drinking milk, nor that they drank very
much. But for that reason Mr. Peterkin thought it would be well to
have a cow, to encourage the family to drink more, as he fe