ight have become of them, until she tried to open a
drawer in the highboy to find a dress when she also remembered that
Highboy and Lowboy were imprisoned.

The drawer wouldn't open; it was stuck fast. So, too, were the other
drawers. Nor when she spoke to Highboy did he answer; he was not there.
Only a dead thing of wood stood where Highboy had been.

"Dear me," thought Hortense, "I suppose it is the same with Lowboy. How
then, will Grandmother get at her knitting?"

She hastily dressed in the clothes she had worn the day before.
Breakfast was over, and Hortense begged Aunt Esmerelda for a bite in
the kitchen. Aunt Esmerelda was muttering to herself.

"Dis yere house is sho' hoodooed. Mah cookies is gone, an' I done made
a crock full yistahday. An' yo' gran'ma's chist of drawahs, dey don'
open. An' de hosses is plumb gone. It ain't no place fo' me."

Hortense kept a discreet silence and hurriedly finished her breakfast.
Then she ran to her Grandmother.

"I shall have to get Fergus to pry open the drawer of the lowboy," said
Grandmother. "It won't open at all." Then noticing Hortense's soiled
dress for the first time, she added,

"Dear me, child, you should have on a clean dress."

"The drawer in the highboy wouldn't open, Grandma," said Hortense.

"And your Grandfather is looking for the horses. They have
disappeared," said Grandmother. "I'm sure I don't know what is the
matter with everything."

Hortense ran out to the barn to find her Grandfather. Fergus, Uncle
Jonah, and Grandfather were standing before the barn discussing the
loss of Tom and Jerry. Hortense stood quietly by, listening to what
they said, but all the time her eyes were on the mountain side, seeking
the rock where last evening she had left Tom and Jerry. She found it at
last and watching it closely, saw something move.

"I think Tom and Jerry are way up on the mountain side by that big
rock," said she pointing.

Grandfather and Uncle Jonah could see nothing, but Fergus, whose eyes
were good, said finally, "I see something moving there, to be sure, but
how Tom and Jerry could reach such a place, I can't see. However, I'll
go look."

Uncle Jonah shook his head and went away muttering; Hortense, holding
her Grandfather's hand, went with him to his library. Grandfather took
her on his knee and for a while said nothing--just sat with wrinkled
brows, thinking. Then he raised his eyes to the bronze Buddha and
spoke, half to himself.

"I bel