Her first step was to sweep the children to the carriage-house in a body. Mrs. Enderby led the procession, waddling along like a very fat hen, with innumerable little chickens running after. Barbara brought up the rear, anxiously counting thirty-nine over and over to herself. Loyal little Gassy kept her eyes upon the children as if she had been transformed into a faithful watch-dog. And the Kid himself seemed to exercise a remarkable amount of oversight; he was waiting for the presents which were, of course, the object of a birthday party. Barbara’s whole subsequent recollection of the afternoon lay in a picture,—the one which greeted her as she stepped into the carriage-house, gently pushing the last of the flock before her. The large room seemed to her bewildered eyes fairly decorated with children. Every broken-down buggy and sleigh was filled with more than its quota, and prancing steeds were tugging at the ancient shafts in vain. In a corner of the room, ten boys were fighting for possession of a dilapidated harness. Shrieks of delight were rising from the hay-mow above her head, and thin little legs were running up and down the upright ladder with spider-like agility. Barbara gasped. “Mrs. Enderby!” she exclaimed. “How shall we ever get them together again!” Mrs. Enderby did not answer. She stood in the middle of the room with her fan idle in her hand and her head turned backward as far as it would go. Involuntarily following her gaze, Barbara looked up and saw a sight which haunted her in dreams forever after. Fifteen feet above the floor, a long, narrow beam extended horizontally from one edge of the hay-mow to the opposite wall. Sitting on the beam, with legs dangling down, sat seventeen children, one behind another, so tightly wedged that there would not have been space for even half a child more. Wriggling, twisting, turning upon one another,—and at any instant the slender beam might break! It was little Gassy who saw the look of frozen horror on Barbara’s face, and took action first. Without a word she sprang up the ladder and out to the edge of the hay-mow. There she called out:— “Each kid that comes back _now_, slowly and carefully, gets a cookie!” No one moved. Mrs. Enderby down below dropped her fan and began walking up and down beneath the beam, with her ample skirts outspread to catch any child overcome by dizziness. “A raisin cookie!” cried Gassy. No one stirred. “With nuts in it!” The child nearest the hay-loft began to wriggle backwards. “I get first choice!” she said. “Second!” “Third!” The line took up the slow wriggle, and Barbara below watched, with her skirts also extended. She could think of nothing else to do. “Slowly!” shouted Gassy militantly. “Keep below there, Mrs. Enderby. Each kid has to go down the ladder to Barbara for the cookie, an’ _stay_ down. Then we’ll play down there.”