ight pull her
dress!

"O, no, mem!" said red-headed Ann Matilda, with the door opened on a
most inhospitable crack. "O, no, indeed! they haven't been here in a
month. I seed 'em a-goin' to school with their books jest as the town
clock struck'd two."

"How strange!" thought Rosa. "They wouldn't have gone back to school
without their dinners."

And when she reached home, she told uncle Tim that she half believed
they were there, though what could entice them to the horrible hut she
could not imagine.

"O my! how cramped up my neck is!" said Bunch.

"O, O, how hungry I am!" cried Tiny, remembering the drumsticks.

"I don't like it here, and I want to go home," sobbed Jelly.

"Well, get up, then, and le's hev dinner," said the Midgetts.

Dinner! There were old baked potatoes, and a mess of turnips, and a
bite of fried beefsteak, all mixed in a heap in a rusty tin pan on the
table; and Tiny whispered to Bunch that there was "a piece of the very
codfish balls which were on mamma's breakfast table." Her appetite had
deserted her, Bunch had cried hers away, and Jelly had left hers at
her own bountiful table. But the Midgetts ate, and enjoyed.

"Now," said they, "if you'll be real good, and mind, we'll give you a
gay old treat. Want to go a-swimmin'? We dunno as we mind a-givin' yer
a little pleasure, pervidin' yer'll mind, and not go near the closet
where the black snake lives."

"O," shouted the children, "we don't want to go near any snakes!"

"Besides, we can't swim," said Tiny.

"Well, we'll show yer how," said Keziah Jane; "besides, yer all look
jest's if a good bath wouldn't hurt yer--don't they, Ann Matilda?"

Ann Matilda laughed, and said yes, looked down at her own bare feet,
and bade the children to "be a-takin' off their shoes and stockin's."

"Now, then, foller me," said Keziah Jane, opening the door which led
to the cellar stairs.

The children looked down into the black hole, and shrank back with
fear. The stairs ended in a pool of black, muddy water, in much the
same way that they do in a _bona fide_ swimming-bath. You will
remember that a pipe of the sewer had burst, and the dirty water had
overflowed the Midgetts' cellar. To wade about in this had been the
recreation of the Midgetts for days.

"Come on now," said they; "lift up your dresses, and come along."

The cellar was growing every minute lighter the longer they were in
it; and soon the children lost their fear, and began to paddle a