“So?”
“Yes. Good-night, auntie.”
“Gute nacht!”
The other boys said good-night to their hostess as they passed out of the door, and then, in single file, they followed the farmer across the wide barn-yard. They entered the building by a low door at one corner, went along a narrow aisle between two high board partitions, and came in finally on the wide threshing-floor between the bays. This floor extended the entire length of the barn, and on each side of it, about midway, a narrow vertical ladder ran up between fixed posts, by which one could reach the top of the mow at whatever height it might be.
At this season of the year the hay was greatly reduced in quantity. The bay on one side of the threshing-floor, was quite empty; on the other side the mow reached to a height of only eight or ten feet from the floor. The farmer pointed to the ladder on this side, and said smiling, “You must dees latter goen oop, und you vill de bett finden.”
Drake was the first to mount.
“It’s splendid up here!” he cried. “Oceans an’ oceans o’ room!”
So, one by one, the boys climbed to their strange quarters on the haymow. The last one to go up was Plumpy the Freak. Glück’s uncle looked in amused astonishment at the ponderous, awkward figure, with its masses of moving flesh, as the fat boy slowly worked his way upward.