“Oh, get me out!  Get me out!” screamed Margy.  “I don’t like it here!  It’s dark!”

The five little Bunkers were puzzled.  It was worse than some of Laddie’s riddles.  They could hear Margy, but they could not see her.  She had gone into a dark corner and that seemed to be the last of her.

“Oh, what shall we do?” asked Rose.

“We better go for Daddy or Mother or Grandpa,” said Russ.

“I’ll go,” offered Laddie.

But there was no need, for just then up the attic stairs came Mrs. Bunker and Grandma Ford.  They knew right away that something was the matter.

“What is it?” asked Mrs. Bunker.

“Margy’s gone, and we can’t find her, but we can hear her,” explained Rose.

She need not have said the last, for Margy was still screaming: 

“I want to get out!  Take me out!  It’s terrible dark here!”

“Oh, the poor child’s in the nut cubby-hole!” cried Grandma Ford.  “Of course it’s dark there!  Wait a minute, my dear, and I’ll get you out,” she said.

Grandma Ford quickly crossed the attic.  Then she stooped over in the dark corner, reached down, and lifted something up and there was—­Margy!

The little girl was carried into the light, crying and sobbing; but, as soon as she found out there was nothing the matter with her, and that she was with her mother and grandmother and brothers and sisters, she stopped crying.

“What happened to you, Margy?” asked Russ.

“I—­I don’t know,” she answered.  “I just slipped like once when I rolled downhill.”

“She fell into the nut cubby-hole,” explained Grandma Ford.  “There are many nut trees on Great Hedge Estate, and the Ripley family used to gather the nuts and store them here in the attic to dry.  But the rats and mice used to take a great many of the nuts, so they built a sort of big box down in a hole in the floor.  The hole was there anyhow, being part of the attic.  But it was lined with tin, so the mice could not gnaw through, and the nuts were stored in it.

“I meant to tell you children to look out for it, as it is like a hole in the floor, though it is not very deep, and one end slopes down, like a hill, so you slide into it instead of falling.

“But I forgot about it, and I forgot that the cover has been off the nut cubby-hole for some time.  So Margy, walking in the dark corner, slid into this hole.”

“That’s what I did,” said the little girl.  “I slid just like going downhill.”

“That’s why she disappeared so suddenly,” went on Grandma Ford.  “The tin, being smooth, didn’t hurt her a bit, as she slid.  And it is very dark in there.  But after this I’ll keep the cover on, so no more of my little Bunkers will get into trouble.”

By the gleam of a candle which she lighted, Grandma Ford showed the children the nut cubby-hole into which Margy had fallen.  Then the cover was put on so there was no more danger.