"Good morning, M's Westfall! Did you call us?"
"Yes," she replied sharply. "Where's Karl?"
"Ma'am?"
"Is Karl here?"
"Oh! No, ma'am."
"I gave him permission to come here and play tennis!" she cried with visible irritation. "Hasn't he been here?"
"No, ma'am. We ain't seen him this mornin'."
Mrs. Westfall was annoyed. "He's going driving with us!" she informed them. "Do you know where he is?"
"No, ma'am! He hasn't been around here!"
At that moment a movement at the rear of the house and in the immediate neighborhood of the cellar door caught Mrs. Westfall's eye. An animated mass of dirt and potato sprouts that might by some stretch of the imagination have been taken for a human being, emerged and paused to regard itself. For a moment it brushed desperately at the place where trousers might have been expected to hang had it been a male member of the human family. A cloud of stifling dust arose; and out of the midst of the cloud came a wail of distress that Mrs. Westfall recognized as the voice of her missing son.