n on Saturday." There were lots of other
things in between.

We all promised we would. And we saw them off, and waved till the train
was quite out of sight. Then we started to walk home. Daisy was tired,
so Oswald carried her home on his back. When we got home she said:

"I do like you, Oswald."

She is not a bad little kid; and Oswald felt it was his duty to be nice
to her because she was a visitor. Then we looked all over everything. It
was a glorious place. You did not know where to begin.

We were all a little tired before we found the hay-loft, but we pulled
ourselves together to make a fort with the trusses of hay--great square
things--and we were having a jolly good time, all of us, when suddenly a
trap-door opened and a head bobbed up with a straw in its mouth. We knew
nothing about the country then, and the head really did scare us
rather, though, of course, we found out directly that the feet belonging
to it were standing on the bar of the loose-box underneath. The head
said:

"Don't you let the governor catch you a-spoiling of that there hay,
that's all." And it spoke thickly because of the straw.

It is strange to think how ignorant you were in the past. We can hardly
believe now that once we really did not know that it spoiled hay to mess
about with it. Horses don't like to eat it afterwards. Always remember
this.

When the head had explained a little more it went away, and we turned
the handle of the chaff-cutting machine, and nobody got hurt, though the
head _had_ said we should cut our fingers off if we touched it.

And then we sat down on the floor, which is dirty with the nice clean
dirt that is more than half chopped hay, and those there was room for
hung their legs down out of the top door, and we looked down at the
farmyard, which is very slushy when you get down into it, but most
interesting.

Then Alice said:

"Now we're all here, and the boys are tired enough to sit still for a
minute, I want to have a council."

We said, "What about?" And she said, "I'll tell you. H. O., don't
wriggle so; sit on my frock if the straws tickle your legs."

You see he wears socks, and so he can never be quite as comfortable as
any one else.

"Promise not to laugh," Alice said, getting very red, and looking at
Dora, who got red too.

We did, and then she said: "Dora and I have talked this over, and Daisy
too, and we have written it down because it is easier than saying it.
Shall I read it? or will