She walked on fast, now, across the back yard where the hens, just as happy as she was to be on solid ground, pottered around dreamily, their eyes half-shut up. . . .  Elly could just think how good the sun must feel on their feathers!  She could imagine perfectly how it would be to have feathers instead of skin and hair.  She went into the kitchen door.  Nobody was there.  She went through into the pantry.  Nobody there!  Nobody, that is, except the cookie-jar, larger than any other object in the room, looming up like a wash-tub.  She lifted the old cracked plate kept on it for cover. Oh, it was full,—­a fresh baking!  And raisins in them!  The water ran into her mouth in a little gush.  Oh my, how good and cracklesome they looked!  And how beautifully the sugar sprinkled on them would grit against your teeth as you ate it!  Oh gracious!

She put her hand in and touched one.  There was nothing that felt like a freshly baked cookie; even through your mitten you could know, with your eyes shut, it was a cookie.  She took hold of one, and stood perfectly still.  She could take that, just as easy!  Nobody would miss it, with the jar so full.  Aunt Hetty and Agnes were probably house-cleaning, like everybody else, upstairs.  Nobody would ever know.  The water of desire was at the very corners of her mouth now.  She felt her insides surging up and down in longing. Nobody would know!

She opened her hand, put the cookie back, laid the plate on the top of the jar, and walked out of the pantry.  Of course she couldn’t do that.  What had she been thinking of,—­such a stealy, common thing, and she Mother’s daughter!

But, oh!  It was awful, having to be up to Mother!  She sniffed forlornly and drew her mitten across her nose.  She had wanted it so!  And she was just dying, she was so hungry.  And Mother wouldn’t even let her ask people for things to eat.  Suppose Aunt Hetty didn’t think to ask her!

She went through the dining-room, into the hall, and called upstairs, “Aunt Hetty!  Aunt Hetty!” She was almost crying she felt so sorry for herself.

“Yis,” came back a faint voice, very thin and high, the way old people’s voices sounded when they tried to call loud.  “Up in the east-wing garret.”

She mounted the stairs heavily, pulling herself along by those spindling old red balustrades, just like so many old laths, noticing that her rubber boots left big hunks of mud on the white-painted stairs, but too miserable to care.

The door to the east-wing garret was open.  Aunt Hetty was there, bossing Agnes, and they were both “dudsing,” as Elly called it to herself, leaning over trunks, disappearing in and out of closets, turning inside out old bags of truck, sorting over, and, for all Elly could see, putting the old duds back again, just where they had been before.  Grown-ups did seem to run round in circles, so much of their time!