"Oh!" shrieked Hilda, clutching Mrs. Somers' other hand.
"Are you underground? Shall we dig you out?" called auntie.
Eunice stood turning her head from side to side, like a dog. Then she made a rush for a large closet at one side of the cellar. It was nearly empty except for a few stone jars.
"I looked in there once," said auntie, but as Eunice opened the door, the pounding began again, apparently directly back of it.
"But the back of the closet is against the cellar wall," said Auntie Jean in new bewilderment, but at the very moment, Cricket's voice, clearer now and more distinct, announced, "I'm here," with a vigorous kick, to emphasize her words. "Can't you get me out? I'm nearly dead."
"But what are you in, and how in the name of wonder did you get there?" said Auntie Jean, more puzzled than ever, surveying the blank boards before her. "Eunice, run and find Luke, and tell him to come here. Are you against the cellar wall, Cricket?"
"I don't seem to know where I am," answered Cricket, half-laughing. "I've fallen into something."
In a few minutes Eunice returned with Luke. The moment he looked in at the open closet door, he burst into a loud guffaw, slapping his thigh with his hand.
"She's in the cold-air box, by gosh!"
"The cold-air box!" echoed everybody in varying intonations. It was even so. The old house had an unusually deep cellar. When the furnace had been put into the house a few years before, the cold-air box had to go in as best it could. It happened to be more convenient to build it down the back of an unused closet which already had an opening for a window at the level of the ground. So the back of the closet had been partioned off for it, and it was continued under the cemented floor to the furnace. Luke had lately been doing something to it, so both the cover that shuts off the cold air was out, and also the wire-netting, that went over the window.