There was a little light on the steps, for Bob did not shut the door quite tightly after him, and if there had been none at all, he would have been quite as well pleased. He was not afraid of the dark, and all that now filled his mind was the thought of getting somewhere where no one could possibly find him. So he groped his way under the steps, and there he squatted down in the darkness, behind two barrels which stood in a corner.
"Now," thought Bob, "she won't find me—easy."
He waited there a good while, and the longer he waited the prouder he became.
"I'll bet mine's the hardest place of all," he said to himself.
Bob heard a great deal of noise and shouting after the big girl came out from her corner and began finding the others, and he also heard a bang above his head, but he did not know that it was some one shutting the cellar-door. After that all was quiet.
Bob listened, but could not hear a step. He had not the slightest idea, of course, that they had stopped playing and were telling stories by the kitchen fire. The big girl had found them all so easily that Hide-and-Seek had been voted down.
Bob had his own ideas in regard to this silence. "I know," he whispered to himself, "they're all found, and they're after me, and keeping quiet to hear me breathe!"
And, to prevent their finding his hiding-place by the sound of his breathing, Bob held his breath until he was red in the face. He had heard often enough of that trick of keeping quiet and listening to breathing. You couldn't catch him that way!