"Shift 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.

In the meantime d.i.c.k Harding was running over the newspapers more carefully, taking them one at a time to see if any letters or doc.u.ments could have been tucked away among them. He straightened up with a sigh of disappointment as he finished.

"Another fond hope blasted," he complained. "I never loved a bug or flower but what 'twas first to fade away."

The children looked at him in astonishment.

"No," he replied to their look of inquiry. "I'm not crazed with the heat, but I was just dead sure we should find something. Let's tackle the other two closets."

The exploring party moved on and made a thorough search of the other closet ends, and the open s.p.a.ces under the eaves, but without result.

One empty and extremely dirty pasteboard box was all they got for their pains.

"There's no other place about the house where anything could be hidden, is there?" asked d.i.c.k Harding of Mrs. Morton.

"I have never heard of any secret cupboards, Mr. Harding. The people who lived here before we bought the house might have found letters and destroyed them. But Alice said her mother, at the time of her father's death, searched every place where business letters or papers could possibly be concealed."

"Well, I suppose I'll have to give up," said d.i.c.k. "The worst of it is I'm afraid Alice can't hold the stock without further evidence."

"I am glad Alice has her Uncle Joseph to protect her," said Mrs.

Morton. "But what black faces and hands, children! Go wash up immediately."

The party did seem a little the worse for wear. It was a warm day and trickles of perspiration had mingled with the dust till their faces resembled a cross-roads map.

d.i.c.k Harding looked from one grimy face to another with a twinkle in his eye.

"Suppose we all clean up and go downtown to get some ice-cream. I'll stand treat. Won't you come, too, Mrs. Morton?"

"I don't think I care to risk the walk in the sun. I fear it will take some time to make these children presentable."

d.i.c.k pulled out his watch. "Perhaps they might meet me at the ice-cream parlor at four. I certainly need to freshen up myself."

It was so arranged and there was a prompt scattering homeward to get ready. An hour later, shiny from much soap and water, and very stiff and starchy as to waists and dresses, they flocked around d.i.c.k Harding.

"I can eat two saucers of cream and three pieces of cake and I'm sure I can depend upon you boys to do as well. We'll limit the ladies to one saucer and two pieces of cake because they are supposed to be delicate.

Is that right, Chicken Little?"

d.i.c.k joked and the children stowed away the dainties industriously. In the midst of the feast an idea struck Gertie.

"What became of the baby mice?"

Sure enough what had become of them? n.o.body seemed to know.

"I guess we just left them up on the chair in the bedroom," said Ernest.

"They weren't big enough to run away," observed Carol.

"Oh, dear, I hope nothing will hurt them--they were so cunning," mourned Chicken Little. She hunted them up the minute she got home. The tiny heap of paper was where they had left it, but the mice were gone. Olga and Mrs. Morton denied having seen them.