Chapter 11

THE COUNTY FAIR

Just as Nan and Flossie finished putting the last of the eggs into their basket they heard Freddie's cries for help. Surprised and a little frightened, they ran out of that part of the barn where Flossie had found the first nest and Nan the second.

"Freddie! Freddie!" cried Nan. "Where are you, Freddie?"

"Down in a hole!" came the muffled answer.

"What hole?" Nan wanted to know. "Tell me where the hole is so I can come and get you out. What hole, Freddie?"

"Maybe it's a dark hole," suggested Flossie. "You 'member the verse: 'Charcoal! Charcoal! Put me in a dark hole.' Maybe Freddie is in a dark hole."

"Yes, it is dark!" again sounded the muffled voice of the little boy. "I can hear you, Nan, but I can't see you. Get me out of the dark hole!"

Nan was puzzled. She, too, could hear Freddie calling, but she could not see him. There were so many nooks and corners in the old barn that it was not strange Freddie was not easily found. It was a great place for playing hide and go seek, so many dark spots were there in which to crouch, and the seeker might be right alongside of you and not spy you.

"How did you get in the hole, Freddie?" asked Nan, knowing that talking and listening to Freddie's answers was the best way to find out where he was.

"I was looking for a nest," he said, his voice still muffled and far away, "and I slipped on some hay and went down the hole. There's a lot of hay in the hole with me now, and I'm stuck. I'm about half way down in the hole, Nan."

Then Nan began to understand what had taken place. She remembered that once something like this had happened to her.

"Are you sliding down or standing still, Freddie?" she called to her brother.

"I was sliding, but I'm standing still now," he answered. "I'm stuck fast in a lot of hay."

"Well, wiggle as hard as you can," advised Nan. "I know where you are. You're in one of the chutes, or wooden tubes, that Uncle Daniel shoves hay down from the top floor of the barn to the lower floor. You stepped into a hay chute and you're stuck half way down. Wiggle, and you'll slide down the rest of the way and you'll be out."

So Freddie wiggled as hard as he could and, surely enough, he felt himself again sliding down. He was not hurt, for there was soft hay on all sides of him. But it tickled, and it scratched the back of his neck, as well as his hands and face.

Some of the hay dust got up his nose, too, and made him want to sneeze. He gave one little sneeze--making a queer sound cooped up as he was--and then he cried:

"Oh, I'm stuck again, Nan! I started sliding and now I'm stuck again!"

"Wiggle some more," advised his sister.

She had set down the basket of eggs and was looking toward a dark side of the barn where she could see the lower ends of several wooden chutes. Some were for oats and others for hay. She did not know just which wooden chute Freddie would slide down. The chutes did not come all the way to the floor, there being room under each one to set a box or bushel basket.

"Wiggle some more, Freddie!" again advised Nan.

"I will!" came the answer. "I'll wiggle hard and I'll--Oh--kerchoo!"

That was Freddie sneezing, and he sneezed so hard that it did more good than his wiggling, for it sent him sliding down with a mass of hay to the bottom of the chute.

"Here I am!" he cried, and with a thump he landed on the barn floor, so wrapped and tangled in a clump of hay that he was not in the least hurt. "I'm all--kerchoo--right--kerchoo--Nan!" he said, talking and sneezing at the same time.

"Well, I'm glad we found you, anyhow!" laughed his sister. "How did it happen?"

"Oh, it just happened," was all Freddie could say. "I was looking for eggs, and I slipped. I'm glad I didn't slip in a hen's nest, else I'd 'a' broken a lot of eggs."

"I'm glad of that, too," agreed Nan. "Well, Flossie and I are 'way ahead of you. We have found two nests!"

"I'm going to find one myself!" declared Freddie, and a little later he