ound the yard.

"And won't Tabby laugh when I tell her about it?" he thought.

CHAPTER VIII

ZIP AT THE CANDY PULL

That evening the doctor had no calls to make, so Zip was left to amuse
himself as best he could. He had finished telling Tabby about the monkey
and the turkey and was wondering what to do with himself when he heard
children laughing in the back yard of the house opposite. Looking up, he
saw that the house was lighted more than was usual, and he knew right away
that they must be having a little dance or a children's party of some
kind. Just then he thought he got a whiff of boiling molasses. He stuck
his nose up in the air and gave a long sniff. Yes, it was molasses he
smelled!

"They are having a candy pull. That's what is going on! I'll just go over
and stick around until they have refreshments, and then perhaps I can
sneak into the kitchen and steal a piece of cake," thought Zip.

But alas! He was so busy gazing up at the lighted windows to see what was
going on inside the house, that he neglected to look where he was
stepping, and the first thing he knew, he was standing with all four feet
in a pan of hot molasses candy. And he found himself sticking fast in an
entirely different way than he had meant when he left home. The candy was
just in that state of cooling when the top is a little hard and the bottom
is soft and sticky. So when he tried to lift his feet, the candy pulled up
from the bottom of the pan and made long, stringy ends, but did not leave
his feet. Instead it got between his toes and held him still faster. He
tried to bite it off, but instead of coming off, it only stuck to his
teeth and he found himself sticking to the pan with his mouth as well as
his feet. Indeed, he was held securely by the sticky, stringy candy. Just
then he thought he heard the children coming to see if their sweets were
cool.

[Illustration]

Yes, they were surely coming! He could not stand it to have these children
he saw every day find him in such a fix. He would never hear the last of
it. So he made a frantic effort to loosen himself. In doing this he pulled
backwards so far that his feet slipped somehow, and he sat down in the
candy. And now he _was_ caught! For his four feet, mouth, one ear and tail
were all sticking to the pan of candy. As the children began to come down
the back steps, he gave one yelp, doubled himself up and began to roll, so
that what the children saw was a big ball of mol