"You're in church. Didn't you promise mother you'd take us to church?"

"Yes."

"But you slept all through the service," said Kent, "and I shall tell mother so!"

"Kent Eddy, what are you trying to get at? How did we get here, anyhow?" said Old Tilly, rising cautiously; and then, as he looked down on the empty room below, standing to his full height, he said. "Well, if I ever!" a laugh breaking through his white teeth. "I should say we had been in church!" he added. "Why didn't you fellows wake me up? What did the folks think?"

"Oh, they only saw the two good boys sitting on the seat facing them!

We didn't say we had another one smuggled in under beside us. But my!

You did rap the seat awfully once with your elbow!"

"Well, I know one thing: my shoulder aches from lying on that narrow seat so long," said Old Tilly. "I say, let's go down to the wheels and the grub. I'm half starved!"

"All right," said Kent in rather a subdued way. The morning service had stolen pleasingly through him, and somehow it seemed to the little lad as though their ship had been guided into a wonderfully quiet harbor.

And now he followed his brothers down the narrow stairs that they had so innocently groped their way up in darkness the night before. The three had agreed to leave the church and partake of the lunch that was in the baskets on the wheels, but now they found doing so not as easy of accomplishment as they had at first thought. When they tried the outer door they found to their dismay that it was locked. Old Tilly would not believe Kent, and he pushed the latter's hand off the door k.n.o.b rather impatiently. "Let me get hold of it!"

But, rattle the door as he might, he could not stir the rusty lock.

"Well, we're locked in, that's sure!" said Kent, looking almost dismayed.

CHAPTER V.

"I guess you're right, Jotham," Old Tilly said.

"But what in the world did they go and lock up for, when we got in just as easy as pie last night?" exclaimed Kent, disgustedly.

"Oh, ask something easy!" Jot cried. "What I want to know is, how we're going to get on the other side o' that door."

The care-taker, if one could call him that, of the old meeting-house, had taken it into his head to take care of it!--or it may have been that the key chanced to be in his pocket, convenient. At all events, the door was securely fastened. The three boys reluctantly gave up the attempt to force it.

"Windows!" Kent suddenly exclaimed, and they all laughed foolishly.

They had not thought of the windows.

"That's a good joke on the Eddy boys!" Old Tilly said. "We sha'n't hear the last of it if anybody lets on to father."

"Better wait till we're on the other side of the windows!" advised Kent.

"Maybe it isn't a joke."

There were windows enough. They were ranged in monotonous rows on all sides of the church, above and below. They all had tiny old-fashioned panes of gla.s.s and were fastened with wooden b.u.t.tons. It was the work of a minute to "unb.u.t.ton" one of them and jump out.

"There!" breathed Jot in relief, as his toes touched sod again, "I feel as if I'd been in prison and just got out."

"Broken out--that's the way I feel. I wish we could fasten the window again," Old Tilly said thoughtfully.

Kent was rubbing his ankle ruefully.

"It was a joke on us, our mooning round that door all that time, and thinking we were trapped!"

"Oh, well, come on; it doesn't matter, now we're free again."

"Come along--here are our wheels all right," Old Tilly said briskly.

"Let's go down to that little bunch of white houses there under the hill, and pick out the one we want to stay over night in."

"The one that wants us to stay in it, you mean! Come on, then."

It was already mid-afternoon. The beautiful Sunday peace that broods over New England's country places rested softly on new-mown fields and bits of pasture and woods. The boys' hearts were made tender by the service they had so unexpectedly attended, and as the beauty of the scene recalled again the home fields, they fell into silence. A tiny, brown-coated bird tilted on a twig and sang to them as they pa.s.sed. The little throat throbbed and pulsated with eager melody.

Old Tilly listened to the song to its close, then swung round suddenly.

His face was like father's when he got up from his knees at family prayers.

"That bird seems singing, 'Holy, holy, holy,'" Old Tilly said softly.

"Can't you hear?"

"Yes, I hear," murmured Jot.

The little white house they picked out sat back from the highway in a nest of lilac bushes. It reminded the boys a very little of home.

"Stop over night? Away from home, be ye? Why, yes, I guess me an' pa can take you in. One, two--dear land! there's three of ye, ain't there?

Yes, yes, come right in! I couldn't turn three boys away--not three!"

The sweet-faced old woman in the doorway held out both hands welcomingly. She seemed to get at the history of the three young knights by some instinctive mind-reading of her own--the boys themselves said so little. It was the little old lady's sweet voice that ran on without periods, piecing Old Tilly's brief explanatory words together skillfully.

"Havin' a holiday, be you? I see. Well, young folks has to have their outin's. When they git as old as me an' pa, they'll be all innin's!"

she ran on. Suddenly she stooped and surveyed them with a placid attempt at sternness. "I hope you've all be'n to meetin'?" she cried.

Jot's face twisted oddly.

"Yes," Old Tilly answered, subduedly, "we've been to church."

"I thought so--I thought so. Now come in an' see pa--poor pa' He was took again yesterday. He's frettin' dretfully about the hay. Pa--"

Her voice went on ahead and heralded their coming. "Here's three boys come to stop over night with us--three, pa. You're glad there's three of 'em, ain't you? I knew you'd be. When I'd counted 'em up, I didn't hesitate any longer! The littlest one looks a little mite like our Joey, pa--only Joey was handsome," she added innocently.

Kent nudged Jot delightedly. They were entering a quaint, old-fashioned room, and at the further end on a hair-cloth settle lay a withered morsel of an old man. His sun-browned face made a shriveled spot of color against the pillows.

"That's pa," the little old lady said, by way of introduction. "He was took yesterday, out in the field. It was dretful hot--an' the hay 'most in, too. He's frettin' because he couldn't 've waited a little mite longer, ain't you, pa? I tell him if the boys was here--" She broke off with a quiver in her thin, clear voice. Pa, on the couch, put out his hand feebly and smoothed her skirt.

"We had three boys--ma an' me," he explained quietly. "That's why ma was so quick to take you in, I guess. They was all little shavers like you be."

"Yes, jest little shavers," said ma, softly. "They hadn't got where I couldn't make over 'em an' tuck 'em in nights, when they was took away-- all in one week. You wouldn't have thought 'twould have be'n all in one week--three boys--would you? Not three! I tell pa the Lord didn't give us time enough to bid 'em all good-by. It takes so long to give up three!"

Old Tilly and the others stood by in odd embarra.s.sment. Jot was bothered with a strange sensation in his throat.

But the old lady's sorrowing face brightened presently. She bustled about the room busily, getting out chairs and setting straight things crooked in her zeal.

"I guess you're hungry, ain't you? Boys always is--an' three boys!