“There they are!” he thought, and he cuddled himself up in the smallest space possible.

Some one was coming down, sure enough, but it was not the children, as Bob expected.  It was his Aunt Alice and her cousin Tom Green.  They had come down to get some cider and apples for the company, and had no thought of Bob.  In fact, when Bob was missed it was supposed that he had got tired and had gone up-stairs, where old Aunt Hannah was putting some of the smaller children to bed.

So, of course, Alice and Tom Green did not try to find him, but Bob, who could not see them, thought it was certainly some of the children come down to look for him.

In this picture of the scene in the cellar, little Bob is behind those two barrels in the right-hand upper corner, but of course you can’t see him.  He knows how to hide too well for that.

[Illustration]

But when Tom and Alice spoke, Bob knew their voices and peeped out.

“Oh!” he thought, “it’s only Aunt Alice and he.  They’ve come down for cider and things.  I’ve got to hide safe now, or they’ll tell when they go up-stairs.”

“I didn’t know all them barrels had apples in!  I thought some were potatoes.  I wish they would just go up-stairs again and leave that candle on the floor!  I wonder if they will forget it!  If they do, I’ll just eat a whole hat-full of those big red apples, and some of the streakedy ones in the other barrel too; and then I’ll put my mouth to the spigot of that cider-barrel, and turn it, and drink and drink and drink—­and if there isn’t enough left in that barrel, I’ll go to another one and turn that.  I never did have enough cider in all my life.  I wish they’d hurry and go up.

“Kissin’! what’s the good of kissin’!  A cellar ain’t no place for that.  I expect they won’t remember to forget the candle if they don’t look out!

“Oh, pshaw! just look at ’em!  They’re a-going up again, and taking the candle along!  The mean things!”

Poor little Bob!

There he sat in his corner, all alone again in the darkness and silence, for Tom and Alice had shut the cellar-door after them when they had gone up-stairs.  He sat quietly for a minute or two, and then he said to himself: 

“I b’lieve I’d just as lieve they’d find me as not.”

And to help them a little in their search he began to kick very gently against one of the barrels.

Poor Bob!  If you were to kick with all your force and even upset the barrel they would not hear you.  And what is more, they are not even thinking of you, for the apples are now being distributed.

“I wonder,” said the little fellow to himself, “if I could find that red-apple barrel in the dark.  But then I couldn’t tell the red ones from the streakedy ones.  But either of ’em would do.  I guess I won’t try, though, for I might put my hand on a rat.  They run about when it’s dark.  I hope they won’t come in this corner.  But there’s nothin’ for ’em to eat in this corner but me, and they ain’t lions.  I wonder if they’ll come down after more cider when that’s all drunk up.  If they do, I guess I’ll come out and let Aunt Alice tell them all where I am.  I don’t like playin’ this game when it’s too long.”