during the year and the day, they so much as mentioned the boot to any
one but their father, they would find it full of the most dreadful black
and yellow spiders which would chase them all the way to Jericho, and
bite their fat calves every few steps.

"This," said he, "may be that kind of a boot. Now promise not to talk
about it for a year and a day--not even to me--and at the end of that
time, why we'll all go and see what's in it. No," he said, "you mustn't
go to look at it every now and then--that would spoil the charm. Let me
see. This is the twenty-eighth--a year and a day--hum." And he made his
calculations. Then he said: "By the way, Mary, don't you and the
children ever get hungry between meals? If you were to take bread and
meat, and make up sandwiches to take on your excursions, they'd never be
missed. I'd see to it," he said, "that they weren't missed. Growing
children, you know." And he strode on, Ellen riding on his shoulder like
a princess on her genii.




III

Ellen and I were very firm to have nothing to do with the boot in the
oak tree; and we had two picnics in the hollow and played for hours in
the adjoining woods without once looking up. Mary had become very strict
with us about scattering papers and eggshells at our out-of-door
spreads; and whatever fragments of food were left over she would make
into a neat package and hide away under a stone; but in other matters
she became less and less precise: as, for instance, she left Ellen's
best doll somewhere in the neighborhood of the hollow oak, and had to go