“Is there a way out?” asked the ragged boy.  “I hardly know how I got in here, but I’ve been trying to find a way out and I couldn’t.”

“Oh, we can show you that,” said Sue.  “It’s only a little way back, and it comes right out on the lake shore.  But how did you get in here?  You look as ragged as the ragged man,” she went on.  “But that’s nothing.  Sometimes Bunny and I are raggeder than you.  We like it.”

“I don’t know who the ragged man is,” said the boy, who gave his name as Tom Fleming, “but I work for a man named Mr. Bixby, and his clothes have lots of holes in.”

“That’s the ragged man we mean,” said Bunny.  “But please don’t ever say we called him ragged, ’cause we like him just as much ragged as if he wasn’t.”

“Oh, I guess he doesn’t mind being called ragged,” said Tom.  “He’s got other clothes but he won’t wear ’em.”

“If you’re working for him, what are you doing in this cave?” Sue asked.  “Lessen it’s his.”

“Well, maybe he calls it his’n,” said Tom.  “It joins on to his cow stable and that’s how I got in it.  After I got in I couldn’t find my way out until I saw your light.”

“What did you run away for?” asked Bunny.  “Please tell us!  We won’t tell on you.”

“No, I don’t believe you would,” said Tom.  “Well, I’ll tell you.  You see I live at the poorhouse, having no relations to take care of me, and no place to live.  But in the summer I hire out to the farmers around here that want me, and work to earn a little spare change.

“This year Mr. Bixby hired me.  At first I liked the work.  I had to do a few chores, milk the cow and take the milk to the few families that bought it.  But the other day he did something I didn’t like and so to-day after I found the hole in the cow stable that leads to this cave, I ran away.”

“What did he do to you?” asked Bunny.  “Did he beat you?”

“No, he stuck pins and needles in me.”

“Stuck pins into you?” cried Sue.  “How horrid!  I never heard of such a thing!  How did you get them out?”

“That was the funny part of it,” said the boy.  “They weren’t real pins.  He’d make me take hold of some shiny brass knobs, and then pins and needles would shoot all over me.  Then, all of a sudden, he’d pull ’em out and I wouldn’t feel ’em until he did it again.”

“That was funny,” said Bunny Brown, thinking very hard.  “Could you see the needles?”

“No, but I could feel ’em, and that was enough.  I got away as soon as I could, when he wasn’t looking, and I made for the hole I’d found in the cow shed.  But from there I got into the cave, and I thought I was lost, for I couldn’t find my way back and I didn’t know what to do when I saw your light.  And then I didn’t know whether to go and meet you or hide in the dark.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you came on,” said Sue, “’cause we were getting scared ourselves, weren’t we Bunny?”

“Oh no, not much.  I wasn’t scared.”