Peter chewed tobacco and schemed how to increase his little hoard of money with the least amount of labor. Maria alternately dipped snuff, quaffed corn liquor and attended her well-nigh ungovernable child. Ambrose, however, was quiet at intervals, until roused to a fit of temper by some unexpected result of his own folly. His favorite pastime was that of torturing insects and other small, living creatures. His parents' only fear for him was that some day he might, inadvertently, pick up a poisonous reptile instead of the lizards and grass snakes which he had been repeatedly told were harmless. These possessed for him a fascination bordering upon mania. In anticipation of such an untoward event Maria not infrequently dosed the child with corn liquor, that he might be the better able to imbibe it in quantity when the emergency arose. The barn was polluted by none of these features. To Mollie and Stephen it was a home, a place of retreat, a haven of rest, a city of refuge, a school and a recreation hall all in one. To them the "play-house" of the past had, in the loft, become a reality. Chairs, tables and beds were improvised with the facility which childhood alone possesses. Mollie's persistency, and Maria's susceptibility to the little girl's magnetic personality, resulted in their retaining possession of the few personal belongings with which each child had been provided upon arrival. Had either Maria or Peter realized the value of such a concession to children reared as Mollie and Stephen had been, the request would undoubtedly have been denied. But a casual inventory of the contents of Stephen's traveling bag, and of the small box of wearing apparel for Mollie which later arrived at the farm, revealed nothing that appealed to Maria or which Peter considered of use. So for the time being, at least, the children's creature comforts were not lacking. With remarkable sagacity for their years the two little ones husbanded their meagre resources and endeavored as far as possible to regulate their daily life after the manner of the routine to which they had been accustomed. They had no idea what was before them in the way of hardship and privation nor how long would be the time of their exile. Stephen buoyed Mollie's hope as well as his own by the oft-repeated assertion that the mistake which had consigned him into the hands of Peter Grimes was bound to be discovered and rectified. Secure in this hope they patiently resigned themselves to an existence in the barn loft and at times were even able to forget their unhappiness and home-sickness in the enjoyment of its novelties.