“I laid out a hunk of it,” I says, “on a piece of a corn-pone.” “Well, you _left_ it laid out, then--it ain't here.” “We can get along without it,” I says. “We can get along _with_ it, too,” he says; “just you slide down cellar and fetch it.  And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his mother in disguise, and be ready to _baa_ like a sheep and shove soon as you get there.” So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she says: “You been down cellar?” “Yes'm.” “What you been doing down there?” “Noth'n.” “_Noth'n!_” “No'm.” “Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?” “I don't know 'm.” “You don't _know_?  Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what you been _doing_ down there.” “I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I have.” I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says, very decided: “You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come.  You been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it is before I'M done with you.” So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room. My, but there was a crowd there!  Fifteen farmers, and every one of them had a gun.  I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down. They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to loo