_

_Each reader, a child at heart be he seven or seventy, will bubble
with the glee of childhood at all its quaint imaginings. They are so
real that they seem to be true._

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. "... going to the big house to live" 9

II. "And the darker the room grew, the more it
seemed alive" 20

III. "They could hear the soft pat-pat of padded
feet in the hall" 31

IV. "Highboy, and Lowboy, and Owl, and the Firedogs
come out at night" 48

V. "Jeremiah's disappeared again" 60

VI. "I'll have the charm
That saves from harm" 74

VII. "... there should be Little People up the
mountain yonder" 93

VIII. "The sky was lemon colored, and the trees
were dark red" 109

IX. "Tell us a story about a hoodoo, Uncle Jonah" 128

X. "Ride, ride, ride
For the world is fair and wide" 134

XI. "... take us to the rock on the mountain
side where the Little People dance" 145

XII. "There are queer doings in this house" 169

XIII. "This is what was inside" 186

CHAPTER I

"_... going to the big house to live._"

Hortense's father put the letter back into its envelope and handed it
across the table to her mother.

"I hadn't expected anything of the kind," he said, "but it makes the
plan possible provided----"

Hortense knew very well what Papa and Mamma were talking about, for she
was ten years old and as smart as most girls and boys of that age. But
she went on eating her breakfast and pretending not to hear. Papa and
Mamma were going a long way off to Australia, provided Grandmother and
Grandfather would care for Hortense in their absence. So Mamma had
written, and this was the answer.

"Would you like to stay with Grandfather and Grandmother while Papa and
Mamma are away?" her mother asked.

Hortense would like it very much, for she had never been in her
grandfather's house. Grandfather and Grandmother had always visited her
at Christmas and other times, and she had imagined wonderful stories of
the house that she had never seen. All her