It was pretty warm that Saturday afternoon, but a strong southerly breeze was blowing. Vendla had just set the last clean dishes on the pantry shelf, and gone up-stairs, when her mistress heard the sound of something falling, and, going into the pantry, found that the screen had fallen out of the window. Jimmy stood just outside, talking with John, and the screen had fallen close to Jimmy’s feet.

“Here, little one,” said John, “if you’ll hand that up to me, I’ll pound it in so it won’t come out. But what made you ask about quicksands?”

“Oh, to tell Dick Somers! He won’t believe a word I say.”

“That’s the little fellow from New York, is it? Well, you tell him it’s all true. He can sink up to his ears in a quicksand, and he may try it if he wants to.”

“There! there! I knew it all the time,” cried Jimmy. “I wish you’d tell him I did see two live rattlesnakes, and I did see—oh, lots of road-runners! He thinks I’m a pretty nearly fool! Almost!”

Mrs. Dunlee heard this scrap of conversation as Jimmy was entering the house. He came along to the pantry, looking rather vexed and discontented. His mother suspected he was thinking of the New York boy, and wondered a little that he should be so anxious to go that very afternoon to return his visit. Dick did not seem to be a very agreeable companion, yet he had a sort of fascination for Jimmy.

Jimmy-boy lingered about the pantry. The frosted cake “made by a new rule” sat cooling on a platter, and the flies outside on the window-screen were wildly longing to get in and have a share; but the wire they beat against was hard and strong, and would not let them in.

Jimmy did not blame the flies for desiring the cake. It was certainly beautiful to behold. Could Dick Somers ever have seen anything more spotlessly fair, even in the great city of New York?

“Mamma, is this a wedding-cake?”

“No, dear; we only have wedding-cake when people are married.”

“Oh, I forgot that! ’Course we don’t!”

Jimmy looked abashed. How could he have been so stupid? He knew now why the boys had laughed at him. Yes, and why Dick Somers was always enjoying such an astonishing amount of wedding-cake. Dick’s sister had been married in church, and the whole city had been carpeted for her to walk on, or so Dick pretended. And naturally there had been bushels and bushels of cake.

“When are you going to cut this, mamma?”

“To-night, my son.”

“Oh, goody! Wish I had a piece this minute to carry to the boys! Dick Somers thinks we don’t have anything good out here. Why, mamma, he just makes fun of everything in California!”

“You may give him a piece to-morrow, Jamie.”

“May I?”

The little boy gazed wistfully at the cake. He knew mamma had frosted it on purpose to please her children; she and papa never ate any frosting.

“It does look so smooth and nice before it is cut up. If Dick could only see it all whole!”

Jimmy seemed to be talking to himself, rather than to his mother, and Mrs. Dunlee did not answer him. But she recalled the remark afterwards, indeed that very evening, after something had happened of which I am about to tell you.

“I must go up-stairs now to change my dress,” said she.

Jimmy followed her out of the pantry, and she shut the door.

“Where are you going, my son?” asked papa a little later, coming home from his ride, and meeting Jimmy running off at full speed.

“To Gilly Irwin’s, papa; mamma said I might.”

Jimmy was in a hurry,—Mr. Dunlee observed it,—in an unusual hurry. And, as he rushed away like a whirlwind, he paused an instant to pick up a basket which stood under the large pepper-tree.

“I wonder what scheme the boy has in hand now,” said Mr. Dunlee to himself. “There’s not a man in town who carries on so much business as our James.”

Mrs. Dunlee came down-stairs fresh and smiling in her new cambric dress with lace trimmings, and sat with her husband in the shaded study. While she sewed, he read aloud, or sometimes he dropped his book, and they had a little chat.

It seemed very still, they both said. Not a sound, even of Vendla stepping about the kitchen, for Vendla was up-stairs sewing.

“How we do miss the children!” said Mrs. Dunlee.

And they agreed that they missed the “Prince Imperial,” as they called the baby, more than any one of the others. He was such a rollicking prince, never speaking a single word, but ruling his loving subjects by laughter and tears, and sometimes by a wave of his royal hand.

At four o’clock he was brought home in Mrs. Porter’s arms, beaming with joy; but refused to tell where he had been, or who had given him the string of pretty shells he wore on his neck. He only smiled and cooed, and mamma knelt at his feet, and said he was “the sweetest baby ever was born.”

Then Lucy came home with two of her cousins. She had visited a photographer with Aunt Jessie, and a man had “tooken her picture.”

“He kissed his hand to me, papa, and then he tooked it. But I don’t know where it is now.”

“Did you keep still, little daughter?”

“Oh, yes, papa; I kept just as still! I was very gemplumly.”

It had long been Lucy’s ambition to be “gemplumly, just like Jimmy.”

In a few minutes the two older girls came home. They brought a box full of wild-flowers, and were rather flushed and tired and talkative. Very hungry too; for a “tramp dog” had eaten most of their luncheon. Edy was afraid if she didn’t have something to eat in one minute, her head would fly into pieces, it ached so hard.

“We can’t allow that,” said mamma. “Go into the dining-room, every one of you! Draw up your chairs to the table, and I’ll bring you a plate of bread and butter.”

She went with a light step into the pantry; but when she returned there was a cloud on her face.

“I don’t know what to think,” said she, setting a plate of bread and the butter-dish on the table. “I baked a loaf of cake this morning, intending it for tea; but it is gone! Vendla!” she called, going to the back staircase.

Vendla came down, looking rather serious.

“I went into the pantry half an hour ago, ma’am,” said she, “and there was the empty platter sitting on the shelf. And, thinks I, ‘Where’s that cake? Mrs. Dunlee must have put it in the cake-chest,’ But I looked in the chest, and it wasn’t there. And that’s all I know about it.”

“Why didn’t you come at once and tell me, Vendla?”

The girl hesitated.

“I thought you might feel troubled about it, ma’am. I was afraid you’d think”—

Mrs. Dunlee knew she would have said, “I was afraid you’d think Master Jimmy took it.”

But Vendla could not speak the words, and Mrs. Dunlee liked her all the better for it.

“My good girl,” said she, “did you go down-stairs and lock the back door this afternoon when I asked you to do so.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you saw no one about the house at that time, Vendla?”

“No, ma’am. Master Jimmy had just gone out. I heard his papa ask, ‘Where are you going?’ And Master Jimmy answered, ‘To Gilly Irwin’s.’ That was just as I stood locking the back door. And after that Mr. Dunlee came into the front hall, and I heard him hasp the screen door. I’m sure I did, ma’am.”

“And then you went up-stairs again, Vendla? And you didn’t go into the pantry?”

“No, ma’am; I went straight up-stairs. I was in a hurry to finish my blouse waist.”

“And you heard no one going or coming?”

“No, ma’am. Only once I heard John’s step; he was looking after the cow.”

“That will do, Vendla; I don’t know what to think about this!”

As Vendla left the dining-room, Kyzie looked up quickly, exclaiming, “O mamma, don’t look so! I can’t believe it was Jimmy!”

“Neither can I,” said Aunt Vi, forgetting to eat her bread and butter.

“It doesn’t seem in the least like him,” returned Mrs. Dunlee.

But she had grown quite pale, and was going toward the study when her husband entered the dining-room. He had overheard part of the conversation, and looked as amazed and distressed as his wife.

“Why, my dear,” said he, “it is incredible!”

“So it is, James. The boy is too old to do such a thing; he has too much conscience. But the question is, who took the cake? It could not have gone without hands.”

“I see, I see, Prudy. And the doors were all well fastened, and you and I sitting there in the study.”

“And the house so still,” added Mrs. Dunlee. “You know we spoke two or three times of the stillness.”

Mr. Dunlee paced the floor in deep thought.

“There must be a way out of this,” he said.

“The cat, you know,” suggested Edith.

“Yes,” said Aunt Vi; “there’s always a cat to be suspected when there has been mischief.”

“I’m afraid he put it in his basket,” went on Mrs. Dunlee, referring of course to Jimmy, and not the cat.

“He said he wanted some of the cake for those boys, Gilly Irwin and his cousin; and I told him he might have a piece to-morrow. But he didn’t seem quite satisfied; I remember it now distinctly. He said, ‘It does look so smooth and nice before it is cut up. If Dick could only see it all whole!’”

“What reply did you make?” asked Mr. Dunlee.

“I believe I didn’t make any reply. Do you suppose, now, Jimmy could have thought I meant to give him the cake?”

“Hardly likely,” said Mr. Dunlee. “But there is one possibility I can think of. He may have taken it to show to the boys, intending to bring it back uncut and uninjured. I know he had a basket in his hand; that large one he carries.”

“Did he really have that basket?” returned Mrs. Dunlee. “Then it does look very much as if he put the cake in it! Hush! isn’t that Jimmy’s step in the hall?”