Let me get hold of it!"

But, rattle the door as he might, he could not stir the rusty lock.

"Well, we're locked in, that's sure!" said Kent, looking almost
dismayed.

CHAPTER V.

"I guess you're right, Jotham," Old Tilly said.

"But what in the world did they go and lock up for, when we got in just
as easy as pie last night?" exclaimed Kent, disgustedly.

"Oh, ask something easy!" Jot cried. "What I want to know is, how we're
going to get on the other side o' that door."

The care-taker, if one could call him that, of the old meeting-house,
had taken it into his head to take care of it!--or it may have been that
the key chanced to be in his pocket, convenient. At all events, the
door was securely fastened. The three boys reluctantly gave up the
attempt to force it.

"Windows!" Kent suddenly exclaimed, and they all laughed foolishly.
They had not thought of the windows.

"That's a good joke on the Eddy boys!" Old Tilly said. "We sha'n't hear
the last of it if anybody lets on to father."

"Better wait till we're on the other side of the windows!" advised Kent.
"Maybe it isn't a joke."

There were windows enough. They were ranged in monotonous rows on all
sides of the church, above and below. They all had tiny old-fashioned
panes of glass and were fastened with wooden buttons. It was the work
of a minute to "unbutton" one of them and jump out.

"There!" breathed Jot in relief, as his toes touched sod again, "I feel
as if I'd been in prison and just got out."

"Broken out--that's the way I feel. I wish we could fasten the window
again," Old Tilly said thoughtfully.

Kent was rubbing his ankle ruefully.

"It was a joke on us, our mooning round that door all that time, and
thinking we were trapped!"

"Oh, well, come on; it doesn't matter, now we're free again."

"Come along--here are our wheels all right," Old Tilly said briskly.
"Let's go down to that little bunch of white houses there under the
hill, and pick out the one we want to stay over night in."

"The one that wants us to stay in it, you mean! Come on, then."

It was already mid-afternoon. The beautiful Sunday peace that broods
over New England's country places rested softly on new-mown fields and
bits of pasture and woods. The boys' hearts were made tender by the
service they had so unexpectedly attended, and as the beauty of the
scene recalled again the home fields, they fell into silence. A tiny,
brown-coated bird tilted o