not be afraid when he stepped up on the front porch.

He stopped whistling rather abruptly when he
reached the house, for it was dark. He tried the
door and found it locked. The key was not in the
letter box where they always kept it for the con-
venience of the first one who returned, so Bud went
around to the back and climbed through the pantry
window. He fell over a chair, bumped into the
table, and damned a few things. The electric light
was hung in the center of the room by a cord that
kept him groping and clutching in the dark before
he finally touched the elusive bulb with his fingers
and switched on the light.

The table was set for a meal--but whether it
was dinner or supper Bud could not determine. He
went into the little sleeping room and turned on
the light there, looked around the empty room,
grunted, and tiptoed into the bedroom. (In the last
month he had learned to enter on his toes, lest he
waken the baby.) He might have saved himself
the bother, for the baby was not there in its new
gocart. The gocart was not there, Marie was not
there -- one after another these facts impressed

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