anything about this, but we'll go over to the corn-crib and find out what
it's all about."

Kit and Evie secured a good point of vantage up on the porch while the
others skirted around the garden over to the old corn-crib where Shad
stood sentinel duty.

"My, I like your place over here," Evie exclaimed, wistfully. "You've got
so many ornaments out-of-doors. Ma says she can't even grow a nasturtium
on our place without the hens scratching it up."

Kit nodded, but could not answer. Already she had what Cynthy Allen called
a "premonition" that all was not as it should be at the corn-crib. She saw
Shad stealthily and cautiously put back the wide wooden bars that held the
door, then Mr. Hicks, fully on the defensive with a stout hickory cane
held in readiness for any unseemly onslaught on the part of the culprit,
advanced into the corn-crib. Evie drew closer, her little freckled face
full of curiosity.

"Ain't Pop brave?" she whispered, "and he never made but two arrests
before in all his life. One was over at Miss Hornaby's when she wouldn't
let Minnie and Myron go to school 'cause their shoes were all out on the
ground, and the other time he got that French weaver over at Beacon Hill
for selling cider."

Still Kit had no answer, for over at the corn-crib she beheld the
strangest scene. Out stepped the prisoner as fearlessly and blithely as
possible, spoke to her father, and the two of them instantly clasped
hands, while Shad, Mr. Hicks and Philemon stared with all their might. The
next the girls knew, the whole party came strolling back leisurely, and