Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/249

 end of a small keg standing near by, "Stay—let us think!" she murmured, yawning. "Surely there must be some other way an we only can think o't!"

Silence descended. Sally, sitting there upon her keg, chin resting upon pink palms, thought she pondered—and actually heard the clucking of hens outside the barn door, actually noticed the coolness of the morning air as it melted into the newborn sunshine, really saw the beauty of an ancient apple-tree branch, with a bird's nest swaying in the fork of it—and nodded, nodded. Coming to herself with a start, she found that she had very nearly nodded herself off from her keg. She looked around for Zenas; but no Zenas was to be found. Where had he gone?

Jumping to her feet, she ran to the door and stared in every direction. The neighborhood was deserted. Turning back, then, in puzzled anxiety, Sally's glance happened to fall upon the hayloft ladder, and a look of enlightenment spread over her face. Swiftly she bundled her skirts beneath her arm and climbed. The first object her seeking gaze rested upon, at the ladder top, was Zenas, a veritable Boy Blue, fast asleep in the hay!

It was marvelously sweet and surprisingly cool up there in the hayloft. The sun had not yet managed to dispel the coolness engendered by night by shining fervently upon the roof of hand