This was the place, which for some reason I have never been able to find
out, the Carr children preferred to any other on rainy Saturdays, when
they could not play out-doors, Aunt Izzie was as much puzzled at this
fancy as I am. When she was young (a vague, far-off time, which none of
her nieces and nephews believed in much), she had never had any of these
queer notions about getting off into holes and corners, and poke-away
places. Aunt Izzie would gladly have forbidden them to go the loft, but
Dr. Carr had given his permission, so all she could do was to invent
stories about children who had broken their bones in various dreadful
ways, by climbing posts and ladders. But these stories made no
impression on any of the children except little Phil, and the
self-willed brood kept on their way, and climbed their spiked post as
often as they liked.

"What's in the bottle?" demanded Dorry, the minute he was fairly landed
in the loft.

"Don't be greedy," replied Katy, severely; "you will know when the time
comes. It is something _delicious_, I can assure you.

"Now," she went on, having thus quenched Dorry, "all of you had better
give me your cookies to put away: if you don't, they'll be sure to be
eaten up before the feast, and then you know there wouldn't be anything
to make a feast of."

So all of them handed over their cookies. Dorry, who had begun on his as
he came up the ladder, was a little unwilling, but he was too much in
the habit of minding Katy to dare to disobey. The big bottle was set in
a corner, and a stack of cookies built up around it.