ll do."

CHAPTER 4

When Chris came to himself he woke from sleep and lay for a moment
without opening his eyes. He waited with his usual sense of irritation
for Aunt Rachel's step at the door, and her voice saying, "Get up,
Chris! You're late again!" But the step did not come, and feeling
rested and hungry, Chris opened his eyes.

What was this? The high regular walls of his bedroom were not around
him, nor the familiar furniture. Chris sat up, rubbing at his eyes as
if this would help to clear his vision, and looked about him.

He was in a narrow bed in a small sunny room. An attic room, it would
seem to be, for the walls slanted down in different sharp angles from
the low ceiling to the broad wood planks of the floor. Two dormer
windows projected from the room beyond the roof, making two niches in
the wall across from where Chris lay, and a third window in the wall
above his head showed that the room, as well as being at the top of
the house, was also at a corner of it. A door was just beyond the
foot of the bed; a chest of drawers and a table with a blue and white
porcelain wash bowl and pitcher, stood along the farther side. Wooden
pegs were placed at hand level here and there, and a rag rug in bright
colors lay on the floor by the bed. The walls were white and the
sunlight poured in to dash itself upon the floor and splash up the
walls in irresistible gaiety. There was no doubt about it, bare though
it was, it was a pleasing room, snug, clean and cheerful, and somehow
well suited to a thirteen-year-old boy. Chris half smiled as he
looked, leaning on one elbow, and then his smile faded as he caught
sight of the chair and what it held.

The only chair in the room was laid with carefully folded clothes. But
they were not Chris's clothes. Chris jumped out of bed and then looked
down with a quick startled intake of his breath. He was wearing a
white nightshirt, something he had never even seen before and barely
heard of. The sleeves were long and cuffed, and the nightshirt fell in
linen lines to his feet.

"Golly Moses!" Chris exclaimed, completely baffled.

He returned to the examination of the clothes that were obviously laid
out for him. There was a fine white shirt with full sleeves and
turned-back cuffs. White cotton stockings; knee breeches of a
blue-gray worsted material, and matching frock coat with silver carved
buttons. Below the chair, Chris saw, was a pair of black leather shoes
with polish