Page:Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat.djvu/253

"Yes, but I didn't mean, to scare her," Will said. "That day I got my hand caught in the loose board, and it hurt so, and I felt so bad that I—I cried. That was what she heard, I guess."

"You poor boy!" said Mrs. Bobbsey again,

"And—and did you see any rats in the cellar?" asked Freddie, who was moving about in his little night dress.

"No," answered Will, "I didn't see any rats. It was bad enough in the dark place, without any rats."

"Well, I guess your troubles are over, for a time," said Mr. Bobbsey. "We'll fix you up a bed, and then I'll have a talk with you about this miner uncle of yours."

Will finished his warm milk, and ate some bread and cake—the same he had taken from Dinah's kitchen. He had gone in there and taken it, but Harry had not heard him, for Harry had fallen asleep.

"And so it was a stowaway boy, and not rats or ghosts or anything else that was the mystery," said Mrs. Bobbsey, when everything was once more quiet on the Bluebird.