“Now, boys, there’s lots o’ good water out in the cistern,” the old lady said, when they came back.  “I’ve put the towels handy in the shed.  It may be you’ll sleep sounder if you have a nice sponge off.”

Only too glad, the boys took to the shed, and then followed their guide to the airy room waiting.  How the pillows fitted a fellow’s head! as Jot said luxuriously.  And the beds, how good they felt after those hard church pews!  They were sound asleep in a moment.

The little old lady stole in to look at them.  She held the lamp high in one hand and gazed down with wistful eyes into the three healthy brown faces.  When she went back to pa, her face was wet with a rain of tears.

“They look so good, pa, lyin’ there!” she said brokenly.  “An’ you’d ought to see how much like Joey the littlest one throws up his arm!”

The old man could not sleep.  He kept asking if it looked like rain and kept fretting because he could not move his legs about freely.

“I’ve got to move ’em, ma,” he groaned.-"I’ve got to practice before to-morrer, so’s to get the hay in.  I’ve got to get the hay in, ma!”

It was Jot, for a wonder, who slept the longest.  He woke with a start of surprise at his strange surroundings.  Then he sat up in bed, blinking his eyes open wider.  The room was a large one with two beds in it.  He and Kent had slept in one, and Old Tilly in the other.  It was just before sunrise, and in the east a wide swathe of pink was banding the sky.  Outside the window, a crowd of little birds were tuning up for a concert.

Jot rubbed his eyes again.  There was no one else in the room.  The other boys had vanished completely.  He leaped out of bed with a queer sense of fright.  Then he made a discovery.

CHAPTER VI.

“Come on—­haying’s begun,” the note read.  It was in Kent’s angular, boyish hand, and Jot found it pinned conspicuously to the looking-glass frame.  “Old Till and I are at it.  Come on out.”

So that was it?  They were getting in the poor little morsel of an old man’s hay.  Jot jumped into his clothes with a leap and was out in the hay-field with them.  He was inclined to be cross at being left dozing while the work began.

“I call that shabby mean,” he protested.  “Why couldn’t you wake a fellow up?  I guess I’d like a hand in helping the old man out, as well as either of you.”

“Wake you up!” laughed Kent.  “Didn’t I tickle the soles of your feet?  Didn’t I pinch you?  What more do you want?”

“You wouldn’t wake up, Jot,” Old Tilly said cheerfully.  “I took a hand at it myself, but nothing this side of a brass band would ’ve done it this morning.  We couldn’t bring that in, you know, for fear of waking the folks.  So Kent wrote you a letter.”

The work went on splendidly.  They were all in fine haying trim, and the cocks in the rough little field were tossed briskly into the rack.  There were three loads, and the last one was safely stowed in the haymow before the little old lady in the house had stirred up her breakfast cake.