through the opening at the top in
a very satisfactory manner.

"There," said Phonny, "this is what I call comfortable. If we only now
had something to eat, it is all I should want."

"I'll tell you what," said he again, after a moment's pause, "we will
send home by Beechnut, when he goes with his next load, to get us
something to eat."

"Well," said Malleville, "so we will."

Beechnut very readily undertook the commission of bringing Phonny and
Malleville something to eat. Accordingly, when his cart was loaded he
went away, leaving Phonny and Malleville in their cavern. While he was
gone the children employed themselves in bringing flat stones, and
making a fireplace by building walls on each side of their fire.

In due time Beechnut returned, bringing with him a large round box,
which he said that Mrs. Henry had sent to Phonny and Malleville. It
was too heavy for Phonny to lift easily, and so Beechnut drove his
cart along until it was nearly opposite the cavern. Then he took the
box out of the cart and carried it into the cavern, and laid it down
upon Malleville's seat.

Phonny opened it, and he found that it contained a variety of stores.
There were four potatoes and four apples, each rolled up in a separate
paper. There were also two crackers. These crackers were in a tin mug,
just big enough to hold them, one on the top of the other. The mug,
Phonny said, was for them to drink from, and as there was a spring by
the side of the cavern they had plenty of water.

"One cracker is for me," said Phonny, "and the other for you,
Malleville. I mean to split my cracker in two, and toast the halves."

At the bottom of the box there was half a pie.

[Illustration: THE CAVERN.]

Beechnut stopped to see what the box contained, and then he went away
to his work again. As he went away, he told the children that Mrs.
Henry said that they need not come home to dinner that day, unless
they chose to do so,--but might make their dinner, if they pleased, in
the cavern, from what she had sent them in the box.

The children were very much pleased with this plan. They remained in
the cavern a long time. They roasted their potatoes in the fire, and
their apples in front of it. They toasted their crackers and warmed
their pie, by placing them against a stone between the andirons; and
they got water, whenever they were thirsty, in the dipper from the
spring.

At length, about the middle of the afternoon, when their interest in