The old man could not sleep. He kept asking if it looked like rain and
kept fretting because he could not move his legs about freely.

"I've got to move 'em, ma," he groaned.-"I've got to practice before
to-morrer, so's to get the hay in. I've got to get the hay in, ma!"

It was Jot, for a wonder, who slept the longest. He woke with a start
of surprise at his strange surroundings. Then he sat up in bed, blinking
his eyes open wider. The room was a large one with two beds in it. He
and Kent had slept in one, and Old Tilly in the other. It was just
before sunrise, and in the east a wide swathe of pink was banding the
sky. Outside the window, a crowd of little birds were tuning up for a
concert.

Jot rubbed his eyes again. There was no one else in the room. The
other boys had vanished completely. He leaped out of bed with a queer
sense of fright. Then he made a discovery.




CHAPTER VI.

"Come on--haying's begun," the note read. It was in Kent's angular,
boyish hand, and Jot found it pinned conspicuously to the looking-glass
frame. "Old Till and I are at it. Come on out."

So that was it? They were getting in the poor little morsel of an old
man's hay. Jot jumped into his clothes with a leap and was out in the