The children called Tom “Limpy” because he always had a sore toe or a stone bruise on his heel. “You’ll never guess,” answered Tom. All the children took a turn at guessing, and then gave it up. “Turkey eggs,” said Tom. “We’ll have eggs as well as squirrel for dinner to-day.” “How will you cook them?” asked one of the Neigh children. “I’ll show you,” answered Tom. So now they were guessing how Limpy would cook the eggs, but he would not tell them, and they had to give it up. The boys then lighted a fire from the flint-lock on the gun, and Balser, having dressed the squirrel, cut twigs as he had done when he and his father dined on Conn’s Creek, and soon pieces of tender squirrel were roasting near the flame, giving forth a most tempting odour. In the meantime Limpy had gone away, and none of the children knew where he was, or what he was doing. [Illustration: “Down came Tom and Jerry from the roof.”] Soon, however, he returned bearing a large flat rock eight or ten inches in diameter, and two or three inches thick. This rock he carefully washed and scrubbed in a spring, until it was perfectly clean. He then took coals from the fire which Balser had kindled, and soon had a great fire of his own, in the midst of which was the stone. After the blaze had died down, he made a bed of hot coals on which, by means of a couple of sticks, he placed the rock, and then dusted away the ashes. “Now do you know how I’m going to cook the eggs?” he asked. They, of course, all knew; and the girls greased the rock with the fat of the squirrel, broke the eggs, and allowed them to fall upon the hot stone, where they were soon thoroughly roasted, and the children had a delicious meal. After dinner they sat in the cool shade of the tree under which they dined, and told stories and asked riddles for an hour or two before they again began berry-picking. Then they worked until about six o’clock, and stopped to have another play before returning home. They played “Ring around a rosey,” “Squat where ye be,” “Wolf,” “Dirty dog,” and then wound up with the only never-grow-old, “Hide-and-seek.” The children hid behind logs and trees, and in dense clumps of bushes. The boys would often climb trees, when, if “caught,” the one who was “it” was sure to run “home” before the hider could slide half-way down his tree. Now and then a hollow tree was found, and that, of course, was the best hiding-place of all. Beautiful little Liney Fox found one hollow tree too many; and as long as they lived all the children of the party remembered it and the terrible events that followed her discovery. She was seeking a place to hide, and had hurried across a small open space to conceal herself behind a huge sycamore tree. When she reached the tree and went around it to hide upon the opposite side, she found it was hollow at the root.