he shed. It
may be you'll sleep sounder if you have a nice sponge off."

Only too glad, the boys took to the shed, and then followed their guide
to the airy room waiting. How the pillows fitted a fellow's head! as
Jot said luxuriously. And the beds, how good they felt after those hard
church pews! They were sound asleep in a moment.

The little old lady stole in to look at them. She held the lamp high in
one hand and gazed down with wistful eyes into the three healthy brown
faces. When she went back to pa, her face was wet with a rain of tears.

"They look so good, pa, lyin' there!" she said brokenly. "An' you'd
ought to see how much like Joey the littlest one throws up his arm!"

The old man could not sleep. He kept asking if it looked like rain and
kept fretting because he could not move his legs about freely.

"I've got to move 'em, ma," he groaned.-"I've got to practice before
to-morrer, so's to get the hay in. I've got to get the hay in, ma!"

It was Jot, for a wonder, who slept the longest. He woke with a start
of surprise at his strange surroundings. Then he sat up in bed, blinking
his eyes open wider. The room was a large one with two beds in it. He
and Kent had slept in one, and Old Tilly in the other. It was just
before sunrise, and in the east a wide swathe of pink was banding the
sky. Outside the window, a crowd of little birds were tuning up for a
concert.

Jot rubbed his eyes again. There was no one else in the room. The
other boys had vanished completely. He leaped out of bed with a queer
sense of fright. Then he made a discovery.

CHAPTER VI.

"Come on--haying's begun," the note read. It was in Kent's angular,
boyish hand, and Jot found it pinned conspicuously to the looking-glass
frame. "Old Till and I are at it. Come on out."

So that was it? They were getting in the poor little morsel of an old
man's hay. Jot jumped into his clothes with a leap and was out in the
hay-field with them. He was inclined to be cross at being left dozing
while the work began.

"I call that shabby mean," he protested. "Why couldn't you wake a
fellow up? I guess I'd like a hand in helping the old man out, as well
as either of you."

"Wake you up!" laughed Kent. "Didn't I tickle the soles of your feet?
Didn't I pinch you? What more do you want?"

"You wouldn't wake up, Jot," Old Tilly said cheerfully. "I took a hand
at it myself, but nothing this side of a brass band would 've done it