Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/61

Rh !" And he went, whistling blithely.

"This is an adventure." Felicia whispered dramatically to Kirk. "We've never had a real one before; have we?"

"Oh, it's nice!" Kirk cried suddenly. "It's low, and still, and—the house wants us, Phil!"

"The house wants us," murmured Felicia. "I believe that's going to help me."

It was quite the queerest supper that the three had ever cooked or eaten. Perhaps "cooked" is not exactly the right word for what happened to the can of peas and the can of baked beans. Ken did find wood—not in the woodshed, but strewing the orchard grass; hard old apple-wood, gray and tough. It burned merrily enough in the living-room fireplace, and the chimney responded with a hollow rushing as the hot air poured into it.

"It makes it seem as if there were something alive here besides us, anyway," Felicia said.

They were all sitting on the hearth, warming their fingers, and when the apple-wood fire burned down to coals that now and again spurted short-lived flame, they set the can of peas and the can of baked beans among the