[Illustration]

Of course Johnny was whimpering at the time. His mother was busy
"washing his face and combing his hair," so he had double cause for
whimpering. But the smell of the tarts thrilled him; he jumped up, and
when his mother tried to hold him he squalled, and I am afraid--he
bit her. She should have cuffed him, but she did not. She only gave a
disapproving growl, and followed to see that he came to no harm.

[Illustration]

With his little black nose in the wind, Johnny led straight for the
kitchen. He took the precaution, however, of climbing from time to time
to the very top of a pine-tree look-out to take an observation, while
Grumpy stayed below.

Thus they came close to the kitchen, and there, in the last tree,
Johnny's courage as a leader gave out, so he remained aloft and
expressed his hankering for tarts in a woebegone wail.

It is not likely that Grumpy knew exactly what her son was crying for.
But it is sure that as soon as she showed an inclination to go back into
the pines, Johnny protested in such an outrageous and heart-rending
screeching that his mother simply could not leave him, and he showed no
sign of coming down to be led away.

Grumpy herself was fond of plum-jam. The odour was now, of course, very
strong and proportionately alluring; so Grumpy followed it somewhat
cautiously up to the kitchen door.