Elizabeth Ann, unfortunately, didn’t always take good advice.
“I’m going down to look for Tony,” she said firmly. “You stay there so you can tell Uncle Hiram where I’ve gone.”
And down the steps went Miss Elizabeth Ann, into a perfectly strange cellar.
It wasn’t dark—that is, it wasn’t so very dark. She began to call softly for Tony as she went down the steps and when she found herself on the cement floor she thought she saw him moving among the shadows. But when she walked toward what she thought was the cat, Elizabeth Ann discovered that it was only a piece of wood someone had dropped as they carried an armful up for the fire.
“Here, Tony, Tony!” called Elizabeth Ann.
The cellar seemed to have little rooms arranged around it—Elizabeth Ann wrinkled her nose at the spaces where coal and wood were piled, and the potatoes and onions and other vegetables heaped in neat piles in some of the other rooms. But when she came to a place just lined with shelves, Elizabeth Ann paused. She forgot Tony for a moment, too.
“It looks like the pantry Aunt Hester had in her house,” thought Elizabeth Ann.
These shelves were filled with glass jars, just as Aunt Hester’s shelves had been filled. Elizabeth Ann knew what was in the jars—fruit and jam and jellies—perhaps vegetables, too. She opened the gate made of slats and went in to have a better look.
“I thought so!” said a sharp voice behind her. “I’m not a bit surprised. Put out your hand!”
Too surprised to disobey, Elizabeth Ann held out her little right hand.