“It sounded most dead,” said Porky. “Kitty, kitty! Here, kitty,” he called in his most persuasive voice.
Another little cry answered him and gave them the direction. “It’s the cellar,” said both boys together, and with one accord they seized a couple of stout timbers and commenced to pry away part of the wreckage in what seemed the likeliest entrance to the pitch black hollow under the bent and broken floor timbers, on which still rested masses of stone.
Suddenly, in response to their efforts, a huge stone, mate to the one they had been sitting on, tipped sidewise and slowly slid down into the darkness, followed by a shaft of light.
There was a sharp cry from below, and the boys looked at each other, a sort of horror on each face.
“That’s no kitten!” gasped Beany.
For answer Porky slid feet first in the wake of the big stone, landed on it, and stepped off into a gloomy chamber now feebly lighted from above. In a moment his eyes were accustomed to the dim light, and he stepped aside, making way for Beany, who came helter-skeltering down behind him.
What they saw was a room that had been used as a store-room for the farmhouse. By some trick of fate the falling walls, while they had made a tight prison of it, had spared the most of the shelves of provisions, and rows of preserves and tins of fruit still stood safely in their places.
A thin, emaciated figure lay in the corner on a pile of dirt over which a cloak had been spread. The sunken eyes fixed themselves on the two boys, but there was no recognition in their glassy depths. What looked like two little piles of rags were huddled close, and as the boys came nearer, the dying woman, for it was a woman and she was close to death, clutched them convulsively. The bundles stirred, and a couple of small heads were raised. Two children, tousled and covered with dirt, lifted frightened eyes and clung frantically to the prostrate figure.
Porky crossed swiftly and dropped on his knees by the dying woman. Very gently he slipped an arm under her heavy head and lifted her a little on his strong young arm.
“Get a move on!” he flung at Beany, and that young man scrambled up the pile of debris where the big stone had fallen and instantly disappeared. Porky, left alone with the woman and the two terrified children, who tried frantically to burrow out of sight under the mother’s nerveless arm, could think of nothing better to do than clasp the woman closely to him in an effort to give her some of his own heat and vitality. She seemed already stone cold.