of it as you like, which is more than you can of rich cakes."

Olly thought there was something in this, and by the time he had got
through his second bit of bun-loaf he had quite made up his mind that he
would get Susan to make bun-loaves at home too.

They were just finishing tea when there was a great clatter outside, and
by came the hay-cart with John Backhouse leading the horse, and two men
walking beside it.

"We're going to carry all the hay in yon lower field presently," he
shouted to his wife as he passed. "Send the young 'uns down to see."

Up they all started, and presently the whole party were racing down the
hill to the riverfield, with Mrs. Backhouse and her baby walking soberly
with nurse behind them. Yes, there lay the hay piled up in large cocks
on the fresh clean-swept carpet of bright green grass, and in the middle
of the field stood the hay-cart with two horses harnessed, one man
standing in it to press down and settle the hay as John Backhouse and
two other men handed it up to him on pitchforks. Olly went head over
heels into the middle of one of the cocks, followed by Charlie, and
would have liked to go head over heels into all the rest, but Mr.
Norton, who had come into the field with mother and Aunt Emma, told him
he must be content to play with two cocks in one of the far corners of
the field without disturbing the others, which were all ready for
carrying, and that if he and Charlie strewed the hay about they must
tidy it up before John Backhouse wanted to put it on the cart. So Olly
and Charlie went off to their corner, and for a little while all the
other children played there too. Milly had invented a game called the
"Babes in the Wood," in which two children were the babes and pretended
to die on the grass, and all the rest were the robins, and covered them
up with hay instead of leaves. She and Tiza made beautiful babes: they
put their handkerchiefs over their faces and lay as still as mice, till
Olly had piled so much hay on the top of them that there was not a bit
of them to be seen anywhere, while Bessie began to cry out as if she was
suffocated before they had put two good armfuls over her.

Presently, however, Milly got tired; and she and Tiza walked off by
themselves and sat down by the river to get cool. The water in the river
was quite low again now, and the children could watch the tiny minnows
darting and flashing about by the bank, and even amuse themselves by
fancying every