"I don't believe there's any reason why we should, Plums. Because Dan thinks the cops have followed us over to Weehawken doesn't make it so, an' if we can't hide here, we can't anywhere, 'cordin' to my way of thinkin'. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to go off so far that we can't get back to the princess." Then Joe advanced to the side door, and knocked gently, Plums whispering, hoarsely, meanwhile: "Be ready to skip, if you hear a dog. I've been told that folks out this way keep reg'lar bloodhounds to scare away tramps." "I ain't 'fraid of dogs as much as I am that the man who lives here will run us off the place the first minute he sees our faces," Joe replied, and at that instant the door was opened. Holding a lamp high above her head, and peering out into the gloom as if suffering from some defect of vision, stood a little woman, not very much taller than Joe, whose wrinkled face told she had passed what is termed the "middle age" of life. Joe's surprise at seeing this tiny lady, when he had expected to be confronted by a man, prevented him from speaking at once, and the small woman asked, with mild curiosity: "Whose children are you?" This was a question Joe was not prepared to answer, and he stammered and stuttered before being able to say: "I don't know as we're anybody's, ma'am. You see we ain't got any place to stop in for a day or two, an' thought perhaps a farmer lived here what would have work we could do to pay for our board." "Are you hungry, child?" the small woman asked, quickly, and, as it seemed to Joe, anxiously. "Not very much now, 'cause we've had a good supper; but we will be in the mornin', you know." And Master Plummer interrupted, as he pinched his companion's arm to reduce him to silence: "We've been walkin' a good while since then, an' it seems like I was most starved." "You poor child! Come right into the house, an' it'll be strange if I can't find something to eat; though, to tell the truth, I didn't have real good luck with this week's batch of bread; but if custard pie--" "_If_ custard pie!" Master Plummer cried, ecstatically. "Why, I'd be fixed great if I could have some!" He was following the small woman as he spoke, and, after closing and barring the outer door, the hostess ushered them into such a kitchen as they had never seen before. A spacious room, in which it seemed as if a hundred persons might have found ample elbow-room, with a yellow, painted floor, on which not a grain of dirt could be seen, and with numerous odd, stiff-looking chairs ranged around the sides at regular intervals. At one end an enormous fireplace, in front of which was a cook-stove actually glittering with polish, and on the mantel behind it an array of shining tins. As seen from the road, in the gloom, the cottage had not appeared even as large as this kitchen, and because of such fact the boys were more surprised than they otherwise would have been.