re Flossie had
found the first nest and Nan the second.

"Freddie! Freddie!" cried Nan. "Where are you, Freddie?"

"Down in a hole!" came the muffled answer.

"What hole?" Nan wanted to know. "Tell me where the hole is so I can
come and get you out. What hole, Freddie?"

"Maybe it's a dark hole," suggested Flossie. "You 'member the verse:
'Charcoal! Charcoal! Put me in a dark hole.' Maybe Freddie is in a dark
hole."

"Yes, it is dark!" again sounded the muffled voice of the little boy.
"I can hear you, Nan, but I can't see you. Get me out of the dark hole!"

Nan was puzzled. She, too, could hear Freddie calling, but she could not
see him. There were so many nooks and corners in the old barn that it
was not strange Freddie was not easily found. It was a great place for
playing hide and go seek, so many dark spots were there in which to
crouch, and the seeker might be right alongside of you and not spy you.

"How did you get in the hole, Freddie?" asked Nan, knowing that talking
and listening to Freddie's answers was the best way to find out where he
was.

"I was looking for a nest," he said, his voice still muffled and far
away, "and I slipped on some hay and went down the hole. There's a lot
of hay in the hole with me now, and I'm stuck. I'm about half way down
in the hole, Nan."

Then Nan began to understand what had taken place. She remembered that
once something like this had happened to her.

"Are you sliding down or standing still, Freddie?" she called to her
brother.

"I was sliding, but I'm standing still now," he answered. "I'm stuck
fast in a lot of hay."

"Well, wiggle as hard as you can," advised Nan. "I know where you are.
You're in one of the chutes, or wooden tubes, that Uncle Daniel shoves
hay down from the top floor of the barn to the lower floor. You stepped
into a hay chute and you're stuck half way down. Wiggle, and you'll
slide down the rest of the way and you'll be out."

So Freddie wiggled as hard as he could and, surely enough, he felt
himself again sliding down. He was not hurt, for there was soft hay on
all sides of him. But it tickled, and it scratched the back of his neck,
as well as his hands and face.

Some of the hay dust got up his nose, too, and made him want to sneeze.
He gave one little sneeze--making a queer sound cooped up as he was--and
then he cried:

"Oh, I'm stuck again, Nan! I started sliding and now I'm stuck again!"

"Wiggle some more," advised his sister.