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"Ther's six candles gone -- that's what. The rats could a got the candles,

and I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with the whole place, the

way you're always going to stop their holes

and don't do it; and if they warn't fools ssssssssss

they'd sleep in your hair, Silas -- you'd never

find it out; but you can't lay the spoon on

the rats, and that I know." ssssssssss

"Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowl-

edge it; I've been remiss; but I won't let

to-morrow go by without stopping up them ssssssssss

holes."

"Oh, I wouldn't hurry, next year'll do.

Matilda Angelina Araminta Phelps!" ssssssssss

Whack comes the thimble, and the child

snatches her claws out of the sugar-bowl ssssssssss

without fooling around any. Just then, the

nigger woman steps onto the passage, and ssssssssss

says:

"Missus, dey's a sheet gone."

"A sheet gone! Well, for the land's

sake!"

"I'll stop up them holes to-day" says

Uncles Silas, looking sorrowful. ssssssssss

"Oh, do shet up! -- spose the rats took the sheet? Where's it gone, Lize?"

"Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss Sally. She wuz on do clo's-line

yistiddy, but she done gone; she ain' dah no mo,' now."

"I reckon the world is coming to an end. I never see the beat of it, in all

my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can"

"Missus," comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstick miss'n."

"Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!"

"Well, she was just a biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned I would

sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She kept a raging

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