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“Can’t you climb up?” said Ellen, who had recovered her temper by now. “Because somebody has climbed up and stuck an ol’ shoe out of a knothole way up.”

I climbed out of the hollow and followed her point. Sure enough–thirty feet or so from the ground the toe of a much-used leather boot stuck out through a knothole.

Mary refused to take an interest in the boot. It was high time we went home. She herself had a headache. Our mother would be angry with her for taking us on the forbidden farm. She was sorry she had done so. No, she wasn’t angry. We were good children; she loved us. Wouldn’t we come?

“I’ll tell you,” said she, and her face, which looked sick and pale, colored, “if you’ll come now, and hurry, we’ll just have time to stop on the bridge and have some races.”

And sure enough, when we got to the bridge Mary produced a stained sheet of paper, and tore it quickly into little bits of pieces (we were pressed for time) and launched pair after pair of sea-going racers upon the swirling tide.

When the last pair were gone upon their merry career she drew a long breath, and seemed as one relieved of a weight.

“Perhaps,” she said, “you needn’t tell your mother where you’ve been–unless she asks you. Do you think that would be wrong?”

I had never known Mary to suggest deceit of any kind.

“If you think it would get you into trouble,” said my sister, aged eight, very stiffly, “why, of course, we won’t say anything.”

Mary was troubled. Finally she drew a deep breath and flung out her hands.

“Of course, it would be wrong not to tell,” she said. “You must tell her.”

But by good fortune we met my father first and told him.

“And papa,” said Ellen, she had been swung to his shoulder and there rode like a princess upon a genii, “what do you think, way up the trunk there was an old shoe sticking out of a knothole, and we all thought that somebody must have climbed up inside and put it there. But brother couldn’t climb up because he’s too little, and Mary wouldn’t try, and we thought maybe Sunday you’d go with us and see if you could climb up.”

I don’t know why my father happened to take the line that he did; he may have seen something in Mary’s face that we children would not be likely to see. He laughed first, and told us a story.

It was about some children that he had once known, who had seen a boot sticking out of a tree, just as we had done, and how a frightful old witch had come along, and told them that if they went away for a year and a day and didn’t say a word about the boot to any one, and then went back, they would by that time have grown sufficiently to climb up and get the boot, and that they would find it full of gold pieces. But if, during the year and the day, they so much as mentioned the boot to any one but their father, they would find it full of the most dreadful black and yellow spiders which would chase them all the way to Jericho, and bite their fat calves every few steps.

“This,” said he, “may be that kind of a boot. Now promise not to talk about it for a year and a day–not even to me–and at the end of that time, why we’ll all go and see what’s in it. No,” he said, “you mustn’t go to look at it every now and then–that would spoil the charm. Let me see. This is the twenty-eighth–a year and a day–hum.” And he made his calculations. Then he said: “By the way, Mary, don’t you and the children ever get hungry between meals? If you were to take bread and meat, and make up sandwiches to take on your excursions, they’d never be missed. I’d see to it,” he said, “that they weren’t missed. Growing children, you know.” And he strode on, Ellen riding on his shoulder like a princess on her genii.