sled. You and Bill'll want to coast
on Bumblebee hill after dinner," which we would, and which, after
dinner, we did.

One of the first things we did, though, even before we ate dinner, was
to go upstairs to my room and both of us put on some old clothes to
play in, Little Jim's mother having made him take some old clothes
with him when we'd stopped at their house a little while ago.

Right away, we were down stairs again, and were on the way through the
kitchen to the back door to dash out to the barn to see if Bob Till
and Shorty Long had been there for sure, and also to see if Snow-white
had come back and was on her nest up in the cupola, and also find out
if her babies were cold or had frozen or something, on account of they
didn't have enough feathers on them to keep them warm.

Mom stopped me at the door, though, saying, "Bill, if you like, you
may wash your hands and finish setting the table--put the bread on,
and pour a glass of water for everyone, and milk for you and Jim."

I was surprised at Mom calling Little Jim just Jim, but I sorta felt
it was because she thought it made Little Jim sound bigger than he
was, and Mom knew it would make him feel good, Mom being a very smart
person and knew how to make boys like her.

"Anything I can do?" Little Jim asked Mom politely. Mom let him pour
the water into the glasses for me, and when we finished helping her,
she said we could go out to the barn if we wanted to, but to be ready
to come running as soon as she called us, which we probably would be
on account of the oven was open right that minute and I could smell
the baked chicken and knew that it was going to be a wonderful dinner.

* * * * *

"Hi, Mixy!" Little Jim said to our black and white cat which was lying
in a cozy nest of her own at the bottom of the ladder which went up to
our haymow. Little Jim stooped down to pet her, and she lifted her
head without standing up and rubbed the sides of her pretty black and
white face against his small hand, and mewed lazily, with half-closed
blinking eyes.

I could hardly wait till we got up in the haymow and could climb up
Pop's new ladder to the cupola to see if Snow-white was home again, so
I started to go up the first ladder first, noticing that there was
dirt on the ladder that might have been made by somebody with boots or
shoes on that had dirty snow on them, and I knew Bob Till and Shorty
Long had been there. How many pige