it
lying on the ground. He took it up, looked at it curiously, and said:
"Thith thing muth be a key." So he tried to put it into the key-hole, but
an unexpected difficulty met him. Every time he tried to put in the key,
the key-hole, which before was in easy reach, ran up so far that he could
not get to it. He picked up some loose stones and piled them up against
the door, and stood on them on his tiptoes, but still the key-hole shot
up out of his reach. At last he got down exhausted, and sat down on the
pile of stones he had made, with his back to the door. On looking round,
he saw that the key-hole was back in its old place, and within a few
inches of his head. He turned round suddenly and made a dive at it, with
the key held in both hands, but the key-hole shot up like a rocket, until
it was just out of his reach.

After trying to trap this key-hole in every way he could, he sat down on
a stone and looked at it a minute, and then said very slowly: "Well, I
never! That beats me all holler! What a funny thing a key-hole muth be."

At last he noticed another key-hole in the rock, not far away, and
concluded to try the key in that. The key went in without trouble, and
Bob turned it round several times, until the iron key had turned to brass
in his hands.

"The blamed thing ith turnin' yaller!" cried little Towpate. You must
excuse Bob's language. You might have talked in the same way if you had
been so lucky as to be born on the Indian Kaintuck.

Seeing that he could not open anything by turning the key round in this
key-hole, since there was no door here, he thought he would now try what
luck he might have with the "yaller" key in opening the door. The
key-hole might admit a brass key. But what was his amazement to find on
trying, that the key-hole which had run upward from an iron key, now ran
down toward the bottom of the door. He pulled away the stones and stooped
down till his head was near the ground, but the key-hole disappeared off
the bottom of the door. When he gave up the chase it returned as before.
Bobby worked himself into a great heat trying to catch it, but it was of
no use.

Then he sat down again and stared at the door, and again he said slowly:
"Well, I never, in all my born'd days! That beats me all holler! What a
thing a keyhole ith! But that feller in town didn't have no trouble."

After thinking a while he looked at the key, and came to the conclusion
that, as the key-hole went up from an iro