“I’m not so sure, Molly. Don can squeeze through a knothole.”
“Donald, Donald darling,” called Mrs. Rowe shrilly. “Where are you, Donald? Tell mamma.”
A plaintive, muffled wail floated down the air.
“Tum, mamma, tum.”
“Donald is in the chimney, mamma! Oh, I’m so afraid he is in here!” groaned Kirke, trying to gaze into the chimney’s blackened throat.
But he only bumped his head against the andirons and twisted his neck for nothing.
“There are bricks in the way, mamma, stacks of them. I can’t see a single thing.”
“Tum, oh, tum!” cried the choked voice again; and this time they were sure it came from above them.
But did it actually proceed from the throat of the chimney? It was Mrs. Rowe who first thought of the unused grate in the upper hall. Might not Donald have wedged his restless little body into that? He was constantly teasing to go up on the roof.
“Here I am, dearest, mamma is here,” she called, mounting the staircase, the children at her heels, and stumbling across the clothing that strewed the floor.