verything, and Trouble was almost as bad, for he, too, wanted to see
everything that was going on.

At last, however, things began to get "straightened out," as the
Curlytops' mother would have said, and they sat down to a fine supper.
Every one had a good appetite, even Skyrocket, who had gnawed clean the
bone Uncle Toby got him at the butcher shop.

"Let's play hide and go seek before we go to bed," proposed Jan, as they
sat about the open fireplace in the big living room after supper.

"Will it be all right?" asked Mary.

"Will what be all right?" Jan wanted to know.

"I mean won't your uncle be mad if we play in his house?" went on Mary.

"Oh, dear no!" laughed Jan. "That's what he brought us up here for;
didn't you, Uncle Toby?"

"Didn't I what, Jan?" he asked, for he had been talking to Aunt Sallie
about the beds.

"Didn't you bring us up here so we could have a good time?"

"Of course I did!" exclaimed Mr. Bardeen. "What do you want to do now?"

"Play hide and go seek. May we?"

"Yes, go ahead. Run about as much as you please, but don't get hurt.
There isn't any fancy furniture here to break."

This was true, for everything in the cabin at Crystal Lake was heavy and
strongly made to stand rough handling. So the children could do no harm
racing about the cabin.

Soon a merry game was in progress, even Trouble taking part, though he
could hardly be said to play it right. His idea was to hide and keep on
yelling for some one to come and find him, his voice easily telling
where he was. The only thing to be done in his case was to pretend not
to know where he was, even if one saw him. This always made Trouble
scream with delight, and he would say, over and over again:

"You couldn't find me, could you?"

And of course they always said they couldn't, though they could if they
had wished.

So the game went on, Trouble taking his part in it. Finally came the
turn of Mary to "blind," and as she covered her face and began to count
slowly, the others tiptoed into the different rooms to hide. The cabin
was built on the bungalow style, with a number of rooms on the first
floor, and there were many fine hiding places.

Janet went into a room at the far end of the cabin, a room that no one,
so far during the evening, had entered. It was where Uncle Toby was
going to sleep.

"No one will find me here," thought Janet, as she crouched down behind a
chair near one of the windows. She looked through the glass,