e thoroughly; and they went down into the cellar
first, because she said she knew Pony had fallen down the stairs and
killed himself. But he was not there, and then they hunted through all the
rooms and looked under the tables and beds and into the cupboards and
closets, and he was not there. Then they went into the wood-house and
looked there, and up into the wood-house loft among the old stoves and
broken furniture, and he was not there. Trip was there, and he made them
think so of Pony that Pony's mother took on worse than she had yet.

"Now I'm going out to look in the barn," said Pony's father. "You stay
quietly in the house, Lucy."

Trip started to go with Pony's father, but when he saw that he was going
to the barn he was afraid to follow him, Pony had trained him so; and
Pony's father went alone. He shaded the candle that he was carrying with
his hand, and when he got into the barn he put it down and stood and
looked and tried to think how he should do. It was dangerous to go around
among the hay with the candle, and the lantern was gone.

Almost from the first Pony's father thought that he heard a strange noise
like some one sobbing, and then it seemed to him that there was a light up
in the loft. He holloed out: "Who's there?" and then the noise stopped,
but the light kept on. Pony's father holloed out again: "Pony! Is that
you, Pony?" and then Pony answered, "Yes," and he began sobbing again.

In less than half a second Pony's father was up in the loft, and then down
again and out of the barn and into the yard with Pony.

His mother was standing at the back door, for she could not bear to stay
in the house, and Pony's father holloed to her: "Here he is, Lucy, safe
and sound!" and Pony's mother holloed back:

"Well, don't touch him, Henry! Don't scold the child! Don't say a word to
him! Oh, I could just fall on my knees!"

Pony's father came along, bringing Pony and the lantern. Pony's hair and
clothes were all stuck full of pieces of hay, and his face was smeared
with hay-dust which he had rubbed into it when he was crying. He had got
some of Jim Leonard's mother's hen's eggs on him, and he did not smell
very well. But his mother did not care how he looked or how he smelled.
She caught him up into her arms and just fairly hugged him into the house,
and there she sat down with him in her arms, and kissed his dirty face,
and his hair all full of hay-sticks and spider-webs, and cried till it
seemed as if s