e filled his rack with hay; but he had eaten
so much grass the night before, that he would not look at it, and
Gibbie was disappointed. What should he do next? The thing he
would like best would be to look through the ceiling again, and
watch the woman at her work. Then, too, he would again smell the
boiling porridge, and the burning of the little sprinkles of meal
that fell into the fire. He dragged, therefore, the ladder to the
opposite end of the barn, and gradually, with no little effort,
raised it against the wall. Carefully he crept through the hole,
and softly round the shelf, the dangerous part of the pass, and so
on to the ceiling, whence he peeped once more down into the kitchen.
His precautions had been so far unnecessary, for as yet it lay
unvisited, as witnessed by its disorder. Suddenly came to Gibbie
the thought that here was a chance for him--here a path back to the
world. Rendered daring by the eagerness of his hope, he got again
upon the shelf, and with every precaution lest he should even touch
a milkpan, descended by the lower shelves to the floor. There
finding the door only latched, he entered the kitchen, and proceeded
to do everything he had seen the woman do, as nearly in her style as
he could. He swept the floor, and dusted the seats, the window
sill, the table, with an apron he found left on a chair, then
arranged everything tidily, roused the rested fire, and had just
concluded that the only way to get the great pot full of water upon
it, would be to hang first the pot on the chain, and then fill it
with the water, when his sharp ears caught sounds and then heard
approaching feet. He darted into the dairy, and in a few seconds,
for he was getting used to the thing now, had clambered upon the
ceiling, and was lying flat across the joists, with his eyes to the
most commanding crack he had discovered: he was anxious to know how
his service would be received. When Jean Mavor--she was the
farmer's half-sister--opened the door, she stopped short and stared;
the kitchen was not as she had left it the night before! She
concluded she must be mistaken, for who could have touched it? and
entered. Then it became plain beyond dispute that the floor had
been swept, the table wiped, the place redd up, and the fire roused.

"Hoot! I maun hae been walkin' i' my sleep!" said Jean to herself
aloud. "Or maybe that guid laddie Donal Grant's been wullin' to gie
me a helpin' han' for's mither's s