Part 42 (1/2)

”s.h.i.+ft your lantern and look again carefully--we don't want to miss anything. You don't see any old boxes or piles of papers do you?”

”Nope.”

”Nothing that looks like a bundle of old letters? Take the lantern in the other hand and hold it out as far as you can.”

”Not a blamed thing but a piece of old board and it's sticking up so there's nothing under it.”

”Well, I really didn't suppose there would be. It would be too difficult a place to reach, but I wanted to be sure,” returned d.i.c.k. ”How many more closets are there?”

”Three.”

”It's my turn next--and Gertie's!” declared Chicken Little.

”All right, crawl along. Perhaps you won't mind it if I follow, too,”

d.i.c.k replied, smiling.

They took Ernest's room next. Chicken Little slid past the coats and trousers and much acc.u.mulated junk which untidy Ernest had piled in on the closet floor. She knocked over a baseball bat in her haste and disappeared in under the eaves so promptly that Gertie felt quite deserted and decided she didn't want to go into that nasty dark place.

It was all d.i.c.k could do to follow. In fact he was afraid he was going to stick, the pa.s.sage was so narrow. His overalls were run through with slivers from the rough boards. Fortunately, only one penetrated his skin.

Chicken Little cheered him on by calling back.

”I've found some newspapers. Hurry up with the lantern.”

It was a triangular s.p.a.ce made by the gable. Chicken Little couldn't quite stand up and d.i.c.k could get no further than his knees. A big pile of dusty newspapers lay on the rafters. They had apparently been shoved carelessly in.

”Let's get them out to the light. I'll back out and you pa.s.s them through to me.”

Jane did as she was bid, handing out a few at a time but just as she lifted the last layer, gave a squeal.

”There's something alive here!”

d.i.c.k started in again.

”Look out, Jane, it might be a house snake, though I didn't know we ever had them here.”

”'Tisn't any snake--it's a mouse nest. There are four baby mice--I can feel them. I'm going to put them in my pocket.”

The children were so excited over the mice that they left the papers to d.i.c.k Harding.

He carried them to the window and ran through them hastily.

”Pshaw, nothing but old newspapers--wartime papers most of them, with long lists of men killed and wounded. Ugh--they certainly are gruesome!”

d.i.c.k dropped the pile and turned to have a look at the mice.

”Say,” he added a moment later, staring at the minute heap of paper and its tiny occupants which Chicken Little had deposited on a chair, ”there's writing on some of those sc.r.a.ps! They aren't all newspapers.

Are you sure you found everything there was, Chicken Little?”

Jane wasn't sure, so Sherm took the lantern and went back to look. He found nothing, however, except a few sc.r.a.ps of paper.