Poor Rob looked back, as Billy led him off towards the barn; the tears ran down in the mud on his cheeks, and made little white tracks all the way.
"I think you're real mean to laugh, mamma," he said.
Mrs. March was sorry to hurt his feelings, but she could not help laughing. Nelly did not laugh, however: she looked almost as wretched as Rob did. It seemed an age before any one came back from the barn. Then Mr. March and Billy came out alone: Mr. March carried Rob's trousers on a stick, and Billy carried the jacket and stockings and shoes.
"Why, what have you done with the child!" exclaimed Mrs. March: "he will take cold, without any clothes on."
Mr. March's eyes twinkled.
"Well, he has some clothes on, such as they are," he said. "Billy raised a contribution for him: my under-drawers and vest, and Billy's coat; he's all rolled up in the hay, and you'd better go and sit by him now."
Mrs. March and Nelly hurried in. There lay Rob, all buried up in hay: only his face to be seen. He looked very jolly now, and said he felt perfectly comfortable.
"Now tell me a story, mamma! tell me a story. You've got to tell me stories as long as I stay here."
So Mrs. March sat down on one side, and Nelly on the other, and Mrs. March told them the story of the Master Thief, out of the Brothers Grimm's "Fairy Stories of All Lands"; and, just as she got to where the Master Thief was planning to steal the bottom sheet from off the king's bed, she looked up and saw that Rob was fast asleep.
"Oh, that's good," she said; "that's the best thing that could have happened to him. Now we'll go out and look at the house again."