Evening star., 1918-08-25
By Ellis Parker Butler.

We'll. ain't that what we want II 10
why do wo?" asked back.
"Yol come on and help us work." he
said, "and. III tell you why"
So ] helped them work and svatty
bully plan. wouldn't have thought
Of It In thousand years. had
stayed awake all night--or anyway al
most half an houT,-t%ryimg % to thihR thS
Gave. cave and all I could think OF was
grabbing him somehow and tying
ropes to him and yanking him up to
sosSS os sSGr So Of the Ssxs snd @se
strong enough. But. swatty had
thought It all out. like he always does.
i might have known he would.
of the cave, and pretty soon we dug
through to daylight. 1t took us all day
and the dirt we got we spaded s INTO nnS
short way out of the front room,
The next day we worked hard too.
We dug out more of the roof OF the
.Soor 6ooF Of ao9 the cave awe SO ae we soad fasten
up sound and quick whom We got the
doctor in 4. We took the stove out
for supper we-had ii all ready. Swatty
We'll. all Of us knew Jake Hines, the
doctors hired man, .a ana oh,na ne was No !ore-
and every night he went over to the
hose house and played cards after he
got his work done at the doctors.
went to bed about . o'clock. but I
thought 1t was midnight got up and
went downstairs and went out into
the alley. Swatty was there already,
sitting In the shadow of Doc Mtller's
manure box. but Bony hadn't come. 50
didn't dare. So we went ahead with
out him.
The doctors old gray mare was
standing with her head at the little
square window. and swatty got ON the
manure bo! and climbed In. He open
cd the stable door and went in after
him. The old mare looked around at
US. but she didn't make any trouble.
and Swatty united the halter strap
led her across the public square. and
down into the creek and then up the
creek to- whore our cave was. She
came right along as easy as anything
where we had caved in the roof Of
the back cave. She didn't want to go
down there: guess she thought 1t
was kind Of funny to be taken into .
hole like that. but doctors horse 70
used to being out at night and to
going into all sorts of places. and at
last she set her front feet and slid
down. 1t was pretty steep, but shc
went down easy. swatty tied the
halter strap to one OF her front feet
and we left her there.
We went back home and went TO
bed. was pretty scared. thought
the doctor would get up in the morn:
would get lot of police and people
and there would be crowds hunting
the mare. ! had pretty bad dreams
!. dreamed ! was hung about eight
fvaA In okn 1tvHt
When got up In the morning was
mighty sick of 1t. you bet. made up
my mind wouldn't do any more, no
matter how many babies the doctor
brought to our house. would stay at
Aunt Nell's and let on I didn't know
anything about gray mares or any
thing. I was through.
So about 9 o'clock Swatty came to
Aunt Nell's to get me, and he was Just
hopping, he was so tickied.
ever thort 1t would be. / came through
the alley and Jake Hines was sitting
IN the manure box waiting for the
mare mare to to come home. And what do you
"What7" I asked. t
HE said he would give me quar-
ter II found the mare" Swatty said.
He said he guessed he had left the
stable door open and she had wan
dered away and maybe she would
CoHo udChs DuI II nunIeO AROUND ana
found her and brought her back he
would give me quarter. So I'm hunt
ing around for her"
Well, I didn't feel SO bad. Bony
came and said 1t wasn't because he
was scared that he didn't come out
last night. but because he had gone to
sleep and hadn't walked up. So Swatty
talked some more and we all felt fine.
We seen 1t was bully. So took MY
dollar, like we had fixed 1t for me to
do. and / bought some bread and some
butter and some things to eat while
Swatty and Bony went out to the cave.
We didn't want DR.. Miller to starve
to death while he had him locked in
the cave, because that would be fnur-
der. So / took what had bought to
the cave and we put 1t where the doc
tor could see 1t, and then we went
down to the doctors house, It was
about 10 o'clock. We went to the
front door and rung the bell and Mrs.
Miller came to the door.
"Is DR.. Miller at homer" Swatty
asked. beg
She said he was, and Swatty told
her we had found his horse and she
said she would tell him. He came
right out. He looked sort of jolly and
he said tss
"Well, boys, suppose you are look
ing for reward. Did you bring old
Jenny homer
mo, sir" swatty said. I'VE would
he her out Of the hole" "
O. ho ,yo rtad ~ 1ror, ,rh.k An1.