ery long--his heart was set on cake. Standing on his
tiptoes, he managed to lift the tin lid of the box when a voice at the
door startled him.

"My land of Goshen!" ejaculated Araminta.

Sunny Boy's hand slipped, the lid came down sharply on his fingers, and
his other hand swept across the shelf to knock over a brown bowl from
which some sticky yellow stuff began to stream.

"Now you've done it!" Araminta told him. "That's the custard pudding for
to-morrow's dinner. What in the world are you trying to do, anyway?"

Araminta was not accustomed to finding small boys in pale pink pajamas
standing on chairs in her pantry, so no wonder she was surprised. But she
was kind, was Araminta, and she helped Sunny Boy down, and did not scold.
She got a basin of clean water and a clean cloth and wiped up the pudding
and washed Sunny's hands for him.

"I came back an hour earlier than I had to," she told him, "'cause I
thought maybe you'd be up and might like to see the chicken yard. No
wonder you're hungry if you didn't have any lunch. Your Grandma has some
saved for you on a big plate. I guess they don't know you're up. You go
and get dressed, and I'll warm it up for you. And don't say anything
about knocking over the custard--let 'em think it was the cat."

Sunny Boy was washed and dressed by the time Mother came up again to see
if he was awake. She helped him a bit with his hair and straightened his
collar and kissed him three or four times and then went down with him to
see him eat. Grandma did not call it lunch--they had dinner and supper on
the farm.

Sunny Boy had a queer little feeling all the while he was eating and he
was so quiet that his mother thought perhaps he was still tired from his
tumble into the brook. He went out with Araminta afterward to see the
chicken yard, and he almost, but not quite, forgot the queer feeling in
watching the hundreds of white chickens and white ducks busily scratching
in the yard and drinking water "upside down," as he told Grandpa that
night. A chicken, you know, doesn't drink water as you do, but
differently. Araminta gave Sunny Boy a handful of cracked corn to throw
to the biddies, and they came flocking about his feet, pushing and
scrambling so that he was glad when Araminta shooed them away from him.
She showed him the nests, too, and in many of them were pretty white
eggs. He could gather them some morning, all himself, Araminta told him.

Coming out of the chicken yard they m