“Now for the dunnage,” said Captain Shad.  “There’s the satchel and—­and the other things.  Look out for that basket!  Look out!”

Mr. Chase had seized the basket and swung it out of the buggy.  David, frightened at the sudden aerial ascension, uttered a howl.  Isaiah dropped the basket as if it was red hot.

“What in tunket!” he exclaimed.

“Nothin’ but a cat,” explained the Captain. “’Twon’t hurt you.”

“A cat!  What—­whose cat?”

“Mine,” said Mary-’Gusta, running to the rescue.  “He’s a real good cat.  He ain’t cross; he’s scared, that’s all.  Honest, he ain’t cross.  Are you, David?”

David howled and clawed at the cover of the basket.  Mr. Chase backed away.

“A cat!” he repeated.  “You fetched a cat—­here?”

“Sartin we fetched it.”  Captain Shadrach was evidently losing patience.  “Did you think we’d fetch an elephant?  Now get out them—­them doll babies and things.”

Isaiah stared at the dolls.  Mary-’Gusta stopped patting the basket and hastened to the side of the buggy.  “I’ll take the dollies,” she said.  “They’re mine, too.”

A moment later they entered the house.  Mary-’Gusta bore three of the dolls.  Mr. Hamilton carried the other two, and Isaiah, with the valise in one hand and the basket containing the shrieking David at arm’s length in the other, led the way.  Captain Shad, after informing them that he would be aboard in a jiffy, drove on to the barn.

The room they first entered was the kitchen.  It was small, rather untidy, and smelt strongly of fish and the fried potatoes.

“Come right along with me, Mary-’Gusta,” said Zoeth.  “Fetch the satchel, Isaiah.”

“Hold on,” shouted the perturbed “cook and steward.”  “What—­what in the nation will I do with this critter?”

The “critter” was David, who was apparently turning somersaults in the basket.

Zoeth hesitated.  Mary-’Gusta settled the question.

“Put him right down, please,” she said.  “He’ll be better soon as he’s put down.  He’s never traveled before and it’s kind of strange to him.  He’ll be all right and I’ll come back and let him out pretty soon.  Mayn’t I, Mr.—­Mr. Chase?”

“Huh?  Yes, yes, you can if you want to, I cal’late.  I don’t want to, that’s sure.”

He deposited the basket on the floor at his feet.  Mary-’Gusta looked at it rather dubiously and for an instant seemed about to speak, but she did not, and followed Mr. Hamilton from the kitchen, through the adjoining room, evidently the dining-room, and up a narrow flight of stairs.

“I cal’late we’ll put her in the spare room, won’t we, Isaiah?” queried Zoeth, with some hesitation.

Isaiah grunted.  “Guess so,” he said, ungraciously, “Ain’t no other place that I know of.  Bed ain’t made, though.”

The spare room was of good size, and smelled shut up and musty, as spare rooms in the country usually do.  It was furnished with a bureau, washstand, and two chairs, each painted in a robin’s egg blue with sprays of yellow roses.  There were several pictures on the walls, their subjects religious and mournful.  The bed was, as Mr. Chase had said, not made; in fact it looked as if it had not been made for some time.