"Who-is-she, who-is-she," sneezed Marjory. "Kerchoo, kerchoo, kerchoo!" sneezed Rosa Marie, her head bobbing with each sneeze. "Kerchoo, kerchoo!" "It's pepper," explained Mabel, when she had finished _her_ sneeze. "I spilled a lot of it the day of Mr. Black's dinner party. I didn't know what else to do with it, so I swept it down that biggest crack." "Goodness! What a housekeeper!" rebuked Jean, wiping her eyes. "It's good for moths," consoled Bettie. "At any rate, Rosa Marie won't get moth-eaten." "Perhaps," suggested Mabel, hopefully, "it's driven away all the rats and crawly things." Working more cautiously, the girls drew forth the yellowed papers and pasteboard left by some former untidy occupant of the Cottage. They burned most of the rubbish in the kitchen stove, Jean standing guard lest burning pieces should escape to set fire to the Cottage. The work of clearing the cellar, indeed, was precisely what the girls needed, after the humiliating events of the day. All four were growing more cheerful; but they worked as swiftly as they dared, for they felt certain that the cellar, as a place of concealment for Rosa Marie, would be speedily needed. The cellar proved to be a square hole about three feet deep. When Mabel, who for once was doing the lion's share of the work, had swept the boarded floor and sides perfectly clean, it was really a very tidy, inviting little shelter; as neat a shelter as fugitive soldier could desire. "Now," said Mabel, "we'll put a piece of carpet and an old quilt in the bottom, tack clean papers around the sides----" "Papers rattle," offered Marjory, sagely. "Then we'll use cloth," declared Mabel, snatching an apron from the hook behind the door. "We'll begin right away to practise with Rosa Marie, so she'll get used to it. Then we must rehearse our parts, too." The retreat ready, Rosa Marie went without a murmur into the underground babytender--Marjory gave it that name. Rosa Marie, at least, would do her part successfully. But it was different above ground. "Who," demanded Jean, "is to sit on the door and knit? _I_ couldn't--I'd fly to pieces." "It's my child," said Mabel, "_I'm_ going to." "But," objected Marjory, "you _can't_ knit. You don't know how." "I can crochet," triumphed Mabel, "and I guess that's every bit as good." "Where," asked Bettie, "is your crochet hook?" But that, of course, was a question that Mabel could not answer, because Mabel never did know where any of her belongings were. Thereupon, Jean, Marjory and Mabel began a frantic search for the missing article. Mabel had used it the week previously; but could remember nothing more about it. "Goodness!" groaned Mabel, groveling under the spare-room bed in hopes that the hook might be there. "If I'd dreamed that my child's life was going to depend on that hook, I'd have kept it locked up in father's fire-proof safe."