rls should be
out-of-doors. Run out and see the barn and the orchard."

Hortense did as she was told, wandering about the yard, exploring the
loft of the barn, and the orchard. At last she came back to the house,
for this interested her more than anything else.

There were many bushes and shrubs planted close to the walls, forming
fine secret corners in which to hide and look unseen upon the world
without. Hortense hid a while in each of them, wishing she had some one
with whom to play hide and seek.

She found one bush which was particularly inviting, for it was beside
an open window of the basement. She looked in and was surprised to see
that the window opened not into the basement but into a wooden box or
chute that sloped steeply, and then dropped out of sight into the gloom
below.

Hortense peered in as far as she could and as she did so, much to her
surprise, a head appeared in the darkness where the wooden box dropped
out of sight.

It was the head of a dirty little boy. As she stared at it, she
recognized the little boy who had turned handsprings in the yard next
door as she and Uncle Jonah had driven by yesterday.

"Hello," said Hortense.

"Hello," said the boy. "Help me out. I slipped."

He endeavored to lift himself to the chute whose edge came to his chin,
but it was too slippery and he could not. Hortense stretched out her
arm to help him, but the distance was too great.

"However did you get there?" Hortense asked.

"I wanted to see where it went," said the boy, "but once I got in I
slipped and fell to the bottom."

"Where does it go?" Hortense asked.

"Only to the furnace," said the boy in disgust.

"Oh," said Hortense. "I thought it might go to a secret room or
something."

"Can't you get a rope?" the boy asked.

Hortense considered.

"I couldn't pull you out if I did. I'll have to get Uncle Jonah."

"He'll lick me," said the boy.

"Oh, I know," said Hortense. "We'll play you're a prisoner in a
dungeon, and every day I'll bring you things to eat."

But the boy didn't seem to like this idea.

"I want to get out," he said, and disappeared.

"I believe there's some sort of a door at the bottom," he said at last,
reappearing, "but it opens from the other side. Couldn't you get into
the cellar and open it?"

"Aunt Esmerelda might see me and ask what I was doing," she answered.
"Maybe I can get by when she isn't looking. You wait."

"I'll wait all right," said the boy. "Don't you