carried in each hand what seemed to be a cookie.

"Katherine Carr! Kather-_ine_!" screamed Miss Petingill, tapping loudly
on the glass. "Don't you see that it's raining? you ought to be ashamed
to let your little brothers and sisters go out and get wet in such a
way!" But nobody heard her, and the children vanished into the shed,
where nothing could be seen but a distant flapping of pantalettes and
frilled trousers, going up what seemed to be a ladder, farther back in
the shed. So, with a dissatisfied cluck, Miss Petingill drew back her
head, perched the spectacles on her nose, and went to work again on
Katy's plaid alpaca, which had two immense zigzag rents across the
middle of the front breadth. Katy's frocks, strange to say, always tore
exactly in that place!

If Miss Petingill's eyes could have reached a little farther, they would
have seen that it wasn't a ladder up which the children were climbing,
but a tall wooden post, with spikes driven into it about a foot apart.
It required quite a stride to get from one spike to the other; in fact
the littler ones couldn't have managed it at all, had it not been for
Clover and Cecy "boosting" very hard from below, while Katy, making a
long arm, clawed from above. At last they were all safely up, and in the
delightful retreat which I am about to describe:

Imagine a low, dark loft without any windows, and with only a very
little light coming in through the square hole in the floor, to which
the spikey post led. There was a strong smell of corn-cobs, though the
corn had been taken away, a great deal of dust and spiderweb in the
corners, and some wet spots on the boards; for the roof always leaked a
little in rainy weather.