Edna swung the big key on her finger by its string and trotted along by the side of Reliance, asking many questions, and delighting to hear Reliance enlarge upon the all-important subject of the Thanksgiving festivities.
"We've got to get up good and early," Reliance remarked, "for there's a heap to be done, even if we are ahead with the baking. I expect to be up before daylight, myself, and I reckon Ira will be milking by candlelight," she added, as she entered the kitchen door. Mrs. Conway was in the kitchen talking to Amanda, and Edna hastened to show her little hoard of tomatoes. "We gathered a whole lot of chestnuts, too," she told her mother. "They were all on the ground down the hill behind the barn."
"I know the very tree," Mrs. Conway told her. "We must roast some in the ashes this evening. Come along, supper is ready and you must get yourself freshened up."
Edna followed along and, in the prospect of supper and then of roasting chestnuts, she forgot all about the spring-house key. This, by the way, was lying on the door-mat where she had dropped it. A little later on, it was picked up by Reliance and was slipped into the pocket of her gingham apron. "I won't remind her that she dropped it. Likely as not she forgot all about it," said Reliance to herself. "I ought not to have trusted it to as little a girl as she is."
It was not till after she was in bed that Edna remembered that she had ever had the key. Where had she put it? She had no recollection of it after she had swung it by its string upon her finger on the way to the house. "It must be on the kitchen table," she told herself. "I opened my handkerchief there to show mother the tomatoes." She sat up in bed wondering if she would better get up and go down, but she finally decided to wait till her mother should have come to bed and then confide in her.
However, try as she would, she could not keep awake. It had been an exciting and fatiguing day and she was in the land of dreams in a few minutes, not even having visions of keys, spring-houses or Thanksgiving dinners, but of the mother cat and her three kittens who were climbing chestnut trees and throwing down chestnuts to her.
CHAPTER III
WHERE'S THE KEY?
Very, very early in the morning Edna was awake. She was not used to farmyard sounds and could not tell if it were a lusty rooster, an insistent guinea-fowl or a gobbling turkey whose voice first reached her. But whichever it was, she was quite broad awake while it was yet dark. She lay still for a few minutes, with an uncertain feeling of something not very pleasant overshadowing her, then she remembered the key. "Oh, dear," she sighed, "if they can't get into the spring-house there will be no cream for breakfast and no butter, either. The key must be found."