“O, O, how hungry I am!” cried Tiny, remembering the drumsticks.
“I don’t like it here, and I want to go home,” sobbed Jelly.
“Well, get up, then, and le’s hev dinner,” said the Midgetts.
Dinner! There were old baked potatoes, and a mess of turnips, and a bite of fried beefsteak, all mixed in a heap in a rusty tin pan on the table; and Tiny whispered to Bunch that there was “a piece of the very codfish balls which were on mamma’s breakfast table.” Her appetite had deserted her, Bunch had cried hers away, and Jelly had left hers at her own bountiful table. But the Midgetts ate, and enjoyed.
“Now,” said they, “if you’ll be real good, and mind, we’ll give you a gay old treat. Want to go a-swimmin’? We dunno as we mind a-givin’ yer a little pleasure, pervidin’ yer’ll mind, and not go near the closet where the black snake lives.”
“O,” shouted the children, “we don’t want to go near any snakes!”
“Besides, we can’t swim,” said Tiny.
“Well, we’ll show yer how,” said Keziah Jane; “besides, yer all look jest’s if a good bath wouldn’t hurt yer—don’t they, Ann Matilda?”
Ann Matilda laughed, and said yes, looked down at her own bare feet, and bade the children to “be a-takin’ off their shoes and stockin’s.”
“Now, then, foller me,” said Keziah Jane, opening the door which led to the cellar stairs.