"She"ll be back in a moment," said Eunice, mopping off the little hot head with a practised hand. "You sit still and get cool. Really, "Liza ought not to let you run around this way, in the hot sun."
"Just what I came out to say," said auntie, appearing in the doorway. "I came down to tell you, my dear little girls, that it is much too hot to run around this way any more. You must sit down and rest till after dinner. Where"s Cricket?"
"She"s hided, and we can"t find her anywhere," repeated Zaidee.
"She will come out presently, when she finds you aren"t looking for her any more," said auntie, sitting down. "How fares our n.o.ble editor?"
"Your n.o.ble editor has most finished," said Eunice, surveying, with pride, her neatly printed pages. "If you could only stay next week, Hilda, we"d let you print a number."
"I would just as soon as not," said Hilda. "I can print very nicely. I"d like to. I"d put big, beautiful fancy capitals for the "Echo," and the names of the stories in fancy capitals also, and I"d draw tail-pieces."
Eunice and Edna exchanged glances.
"It"s a very great pity you can"t stay," said Edna, with marked politeness. "We can"t do tail-pieces." The two little girls, Hilda and Edna, were just enough alike to clash very often, though Edna was never given to bragging, as Hilda sometimes was, and she was much more unselfish.
"I can draw very well," said Hilda, serenely, and with perfect truth.
Like Edna, she had a dainty touch.
The minutes pa.s.sed by, and still Cricket did not appear. Presently auntie raised her head, and listened.
"I thought I heard Cricket calling," she said, "but I don"t hear it again."
A moment later, Eunice suddenly said:
"There certainly is some one calling. Is it Cricket?" She stood up to listen better. A m.u.f.fled cry was certainly heard.
"Children! Eunice!"
Eunice shot off the piazza.
"Yes, Cricket, where are you?" running around the house. In a few moments she reappeared from the other side.
"Where can she be? I ran all around the barn, too. Hark! there it is again! Cricket! where are you?"
And again every one heard the same m.u.f.fled cry, "Eunice!"
"Now it sounds _in_ the house," said Mrs. Somers, going in.
They all joined in the search, running in every direction, and trying to locate the indistinct sounds. She was evidently in trouble, but they could not imagine why she did not tell them where she was. Somebody suggested the garret, and they all trooped up there and searched every corner in vain. Then closets, even to the rubbers-closet under the stairs, were investigated. If they stood inside the house, her call seemed to come from outside. If they went out, she seemed to be calling from inside. After the barn and woodshed were searched, there was really no place for her to conceal herself in.
"This is certainly the strangest thing!" said Auntie Jean, at last in despair. "Cricket, dear child, where _are_ you?" looking up at the trees.
"I don"t know!" wailed a voice so near them that they all jumped. They were near the open cellar window, where the coal was put in.
"Down cellar!" cried Eunice, darting away. "She must be caught somewhere!"
But down cellar, the sounds, though still audible, were more vague than ever.
"It really sounds in the furnace," suggested Eunice, hopefully, going forward. She threw open the door, rather expecting to see Cricket crouching in a bunch in the fire-box. But no! it was guiltless of Cricket, as every other place had been.
"This is getting positively uncanny," exclaimed auntie, when suddenly a tremendous pounding that seemed to come from their very feet was heard.
Hilda grew pale, Edna clung to her mother, Zaidee began to roar, and Helen to whimper, while Eunice sprang forward, listening intently.
"Do that again, Cricket," she said, and immediately the pounding was repeated.
"If I had ever heard of an underground pa.s.sage here, I should think she was in that," said auntie, looking puzzled. "If it were Governor Winthrop"s house, all could be explained. Cricket, in the name of all that is weird, where are you?"
"I don"t know," came in sepulchral tones. "I seem to be walled up!"
"Oh!" shrieked Hilda, clutching Mrs. Somers" other hand.
"Are you underground? Shall we dig you out?" called auntie.
Eunice stood turning her head from side to side, like a dog. Then she made a rush for a large closet at one side of the cellar. It was nearly empty except for a few stone jars.
"I looked in there once," said auntie, but as Eunice opened the door, the pounding began again, apparently directly back of it.
"But the back of the closet is against the cellar wall," said Auntie Jean in new bewilderment, but at the very moment, Cricket"s voice, clearer now and more distinct, announced, "I"m here," with a vigorous kick, to emphasize her words. "_Can"t_ you get me out? I"m nearly dead."
"But _what_ are you in, and how in the name of wonder did you get there?" said Auntie Jean, more puzzled than ever, surveying the blank boards before her. "Eunice, run and find Luke, and tell him to come here. Are you against the cellar wall, Cricket?"
"I don"t seem to know where I am," answered Cricket, half-laughing.
"I"ve fallen into something."
In a few minutes Eunice returned with Luke. The moment he looked in at the open closet door, he burst into a loud guffaw, slapping his thigh with his hand.
"She"s in the cold-air box, by gosh!"
"The cold-air box!" echoed everybody in varying intonations. It was even so. The old house had an unusually deep cellar. When the furnace had been put into the house a few years before, the cold-air box had to go in as best it could. It happened to be more convenient to build it down the back of an unused closet which already had an opening for a window at the level of the ground. So the back of the closet had been partioned off for it, and it was continued under the cemented floor to the furnace. Luke had lately been doing something to it, so both the cover that shuts off the cold air was out, and also the wire-netting, that went over the window.
Cricket seeing the window from the outside, took it for granted that it opened into the coal-bin, and, in her heedless fashion, backed hastily through, as she was looking for a good place to hide in, meaning to swing down by her hands, and drop on her feet. She _did_ drop, what to her surprise seemed about to the middle of the earth, and it really was some distance. The cellar, as I said, was unusually deep, and Cricket was only four feet high. Every one knows how surprising it is to come down even a foot or two lower than we expect, and the swift, long drop, when she thought she must be already near the cellar bottom, not only startled, but slightly stunned her for a few moments. When she opened her eyes after the black, dizzy whirl that lasted for several minutes, she could not imagine what sort of a place she was in. The light above her showed her a square, well-like tunnel, set up on end, and about two feet square, with the window ledge five feet higher than her head. At first she tried to climb up the wall by bracing herself on opposite sides of it, but her muscles were not quite equal to this. It was not until it slowly dawned on her that she could not possibly get out by her own efforts, that she began to call. Of course her voice was carried by the furnace pipes all over the house, making it impossible to locate the sound.
"There"s a big hole down by my feet," Cricket called out, when she heard them debating as to the best way to get her out. "Can"t I crawl through that and come out somewhere?"
"You"d come out in the furnace, Miss," said Luke, "and you"d get stuck in the bend. I"ll haul you up from the outside."
They all went outside, while Luke tried to reach down to her, but their hands could not make connections.
"Let a ladder down," said Eunice, but there was not room for both a ladder and Cricket, even if one could have been put down.
"Let a rope down, and tie it around her waist," said Luke, "and I"ll haul it up."
"I"m afraid that would hurt her," said auntie, anxiously.
Just then Will and Archie arrived on the scene, and joined the group around the window.
"What"s up? caught a burglar down there?" asked Will.