A STRANGE HOUSE IN THE FOREST

Together they traveled along the road the greater part of the day without mishap and without any experience worth recording.

As was her custom, the Masked Lady did not make her appearance among them as long as they were quite light-hearted, and Everychild went so far as to congratulate himself upon having seen the last of her.

Toward evening they came within sight of a path leading into the road on which they traveled, and on a stile which stood in the way of the path they observed a little boy who was plainly in trouble.

With much difficulty the little boy crawled up the stile, step by step; and when he got to the top step and paused a minute, he turned about, just as small children will do, and began climbing down the stile on the other side, moving feet foremost.

Now and again he looked over his shoulder to be sure that his feet had been safely placed before he put his weight on them; and when he did this you could see his face, showing two eyes very bright with excitement and fear.

At last he had got clear over the stile; and then he stood erect and put his finger in his mouth.  You could tell that he was trying to think what to do now.

In the meantime Everychild and his companions had come up.

“Such a cute little chap,” said Everychild.  Then he spoke to the child.  “Where are you going, little boy?” he asked.

The little boy looked at Everychild blankly.  He looked at him quite a long time.  Then he looked at the other members of the band.  Finally he looked at Everychild again, still with a blank expression.  But at last he replied, “I want to go home, but I dasn’t.”

The band of travelers all laughed at this; whereupon the little boy looked at all of them, one after another.  He still had his finger in his mouth, where he kept crooking it and uncrooking it.

Then Cinderella asked:  “Why dare you not go home?”

The little boy lowered his eyes until they rested on the ground.  “Because I dasn’t,” he said.

“But why?” persisted Cinderella.

A pause; and then, “Because I’ll catch a lickin’.”

It seemed to Everychild that the little boy was much too small to be whipped; and he said with assurance, “You may go with us, if you will, and then you’ll never get a whipping again.”

But the little boy only shook his head.  Clearly there was a difficulty in the way of accepting the invitation.  And presently he began, falteringly, “My brothers and sisters . . .”

“Oh,” said Cinderella, understanding, “he doesn’t want to leave his brothers and sisters.”

“But we could take your brothers and sisters, too,” said Everychild to the little boy.

The little boy now gazed at Everychild, and the blank expression in his eyes was there no more.

“Come, we’ll get them,” declared Everychild.  “Do you live far away?”