"Bah," said Charlie, "I don't want any of her plum cake if she puts the same kind of raisins in it she does in her puddings. But, Jenny, I think I know where she keeps her nice victuals."
"Where?" asked Jenny, with an earnest look on Charlie's cunning face.
"Have you never noticed that great tin boiler under her bed?" Jenny burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, which Amy vainly endeavored to silence, and directly Mary Madeline appeared and said, "Mother would like to have a little less noise if they could favor her, as she had company below." Then the three sat down on the floor, and Jenny and Charlie planned a midnight attack upon the tin boiler. Amy, who was more sedate and cautious, advised them to desist; but 'twas just the exploit for Jenny's frolicsome, mischievous temperament. Charlie was to take a pillow-case, and creep softly under the bed, and fill it from the supposed contents of the mysterious boiler, while Jenny stood at the kitchen door to assist him in bearing the precious burden to their room. How slow the hours passed after the plot was formed ere it could be carried into execution! Mrs. Salsify in the parlor below kept wishing her visitors would go, for she had never seen the wicks in the camphene lamps of so surprising a length. They flooded the whole room with light, and she recollected Jenny Andrews had asked the privilege of trimming them after they were last used. She dared not rise and pick them down, for such narrow-souled persons as she are always fearful that the truth will be known and their littleness exposed; so she sat in a perfect fever, watching the fluid getting every moment lower, and scarcely heeding the remarks of her guests. At length they took their departure, and Mrs. Salsify rushed in a sort of frenzy to the lamps, and dropped the caps over the blazing wicks.
"Mary Madeline," said Mr. Mumbles, reprovingly, "don't you know how to trim a lamp properly? Enough fluid has been wasted to-night by means of those long wicks to last two evenings with wicks of a proper length."
"'Tis none of Maddie's doings," returned Mrs. S., "she is more prudent than that. 'Twas that hussy of a Jenny Andrews who trimmed them after Miss Pinkerton was here the other night."
"Well, the girl ought to pay for the waste she has occasioned," said Mr. Salsify, gruffly. "Let us retire now; I declare 'tis near eleven o'clock." The conspirators in the room above heard with eager ears the departure of the guests, and sat in perfect silence till midnight chimed from the old clock tower. Then Charlie Seaton, pillow-case in hand, crept silently down the stairs with Jenny close behind him. Mrs. Mumbles' bed-room opened out of the kitchen, and the door was always standing ajar. Thus Charlie's quick eye had detected the boiler while sitting at the dining table directly opposite her room. As he now paused a moment in the kitchen before crossing the forbidden precincts, the deep-drawn sonorous breathings convinced him that Mr. and Mrs. Salsify Mumbles were lulled in their deepest nocturnal slumbers. Gently dropping on his knees, he crawled softly to the object of plunder. Lucky chance! the cover was off, and the first thing his hand touched was a knife plunged to the hilt in a large loaf. This he captured and deposited in his bag. Then followed pies, tarts, etc., and last a small jar, which he took under his arm, and, thus encumbered, crept on all-fours to the kitchen door, where Jenny relieved him of the jar. They softly ascended the stairs, where Amy was ready to receive them.
"How dared you take that jar?" said she; "what does it contain?"
"I don't know," said Charlie; "but I know what my pillow-case contains. It was never so well lined before, Amy."
Thus saying, he commenced removing its contents, while Jenny pulled the knife out of the loaf, which proved to be pound cake, uncovered the jar, and pronounced it filled with cherry jam. "Ay," said Amy, "there's where those cherries I saw her buying of Dilly Danforth went, then. She told me they were so dirty she had to throw them away. But I think you had better go and carry these things back."
"Never," said Charlie; "I am going to eat my fill once in Mrs. Mumbles' house."