ips. "I'm going to peek in
and see it."

Obed went and "peeked," while Hitty sauntered slowly on. The
contemplation of the cake under the circumstances was too much for
even so well-brought-up a boy as Obed. Without stopping to really
think what he was doing, he unwound from his neck his great woollen
"comforter," wrapped it hastily around the cake, and was walking with
it beside Hitty in the lonely, drifted country road five minutes
later. The hearts of the two little conspirators--for they felt guilty
enough--beat very hard, but they could not help thinking how good that
cake would taste. A certain Goodsir Canty's cornhouse stood near them
in a clump of trees beside the road, and as the door was open they
crept in, gulped down great "chunks" of cake, distributed vast slices
of what was left about their persons, Obed taking by far the lion's
share, and then they parted, vowing eternal secrecy. Nobody had seen
them, and something which happened just after they had left Mistress
Elliott's back kitchen directed suspicion to an entirely different
quarter.

Not two minutes after Obed's "comforter" had been thrown around the
great cake a beautiful calf, the pride of Mistress Elliott's heart,
and which was usually kept tied in the barn just beyond the back
kitchen, somehow unfastened her rope and came strolling along past the
open back door. The odour of the pumpkin pies naturally interested
her, and she proceeded to lick up the delicious creamy filling of one
after another with great zest.

Just as she was finishing the very last one of the four or five which
had stood there, Mistress Elliott appeared upon the scene, to find her
precious dainties faded like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving
behind them only a few broken bits of pie crust. A series of "short,
sharp shocks" (as described in "The Mikado") then rent the air,
summoning Prudence Ann and Delcy, the maid, to the scene of the
calamity. Let us draw a veil over the succeeding ten minutes.

At the end of that time Prudence Ann lay upon the sitting-room lounge
(or "settle," as they called it then) passing from one fainting fit
into another, and Delcy was out in search of the doctor and such
family friends as were likely to be of service in this unexpected
dilemma. It was, of course, supposed that the calf had devoured the
whole of the mighty cake as well as the pies. It was lucky for Obed
and Hitty that the poor beast could not speak. As it was, nobody so
mu