Now, Dick was a very small pattern of a boy, indeed, to be still a boy.  Really he might crawl into the cold-air box.  He tried it!  He did get in!  He had to squeeze through one part, but worked his way down fairly into the cellar, and screamed out with triumph that he had found the ball close by the hole!  But how was Dick to get out again?  He declared he could never scramble up.  He slipped back as fast as he tried.  He would look for the cellar stairs, only it was awful dark except just by the hole.  He had a match in his pocket.  Jack ran to the Pentzes’ and got a candle, and they rolled it in to Dick, and waited anxiously to see where he would turn up next.  They heard him, before long, pounding at a door round the corner of the house.  He had found the cellar stairs, and a door with bolts and a great rusty key, which he succeeded in turning.  The boys pulled at the door and it opened; and there stood Dick with the ball in one hand, picking up the candle with the other!

What a chance to enter the house!  Down the cellar stairs, up into the attics!  Strange echoes in the great halls, and dark inside; for all the windows were closed and barred,—­all but in one room upstairs that opened on a back veranda.  It was a warm late-autumn day, and the sun poured down pleasantly upon a seat in the corner of the veranda, where a creeper was shedding its last gay leaves.

“What a place to study!” exclaimed Sam.

“Let’s come and spend to-morrow,” said John Stebbins; “there’s no school.”

“No school Friday, on account of the furnace!” exclaimed Jack.  “Let’s bring a lot of provisions and stay the whole day here.”

“We might lay it in to-night,” said John Stebbins; “we’ll come up after school this afternoon!”

“And I’ll tell father about the key this evening,” said Sam; “he won’t mind, if he finds we have got one.”

“Jack and I will see to the provisions,” said John Stebbins, “if the rest of you boys will come here as soon as school is over.”

It was all so interesting that they were too late for dinners, and had to content themselves with gingerbread as they hurried to school.

“Be sure you tell mother,” was Sam’s last warning to Jack and John Stebbins, as they parted for their separate schoolrooms.

After school the party hastened to the old house.  Sam took the entry key from his pocket and opened the door, leaving Dick to wait for Jack and John Stebbins.  They appeared before long with a basket of provisions, and were ready for a feast directly, but delayed for a further examination of the house.  It was dark soon, and Sam would not let them stay long in any one room.  They must just take a look, and then go home,—­no waiting for a feast.

“I’ll talk to father this evening, and ask him if we may have it if we keep the whole thing secret.”

They fumbled their way down to the lower back door, but could not get it open.  It was locked!