want to shut up
the hens much in the summer."

"No," replied Stuyvesant; "but it is a great deal better to have the
doors all in order."

"Why is it better?" asked Phonny.

"It is more satisfactory," said Stuyvesant.

"Satisfactory!" repeated Phonny. "Hoh!"

Stuyvesant went into the hen-house. Phonny followed him in.

It was a small room, with a loft upon one side of it. The floor was
covered with sticks, straw and litter. In one corner was a barrel,
three quarters filled with hay. There were two or three bars overhead
for the hens to roost upon. Stuyvesant looked around upon all these
objects for a few minutes in silence, and then pointing up to the
loft, he asked,

"What is up there?"

"That is the loft," replied Phonny. "There is nothing up there."

"How do you get up to see?" asked Stuyvesant.

"I can't get up, except when Beechnut is here to boost me," said
Phonny.

"I mean to make a ladder," said Stuyvesant.

"Hoh!" said Phonny, "you can't make a ladder."

"I will try, at any rate," said Stuyvesant. Then after a short pause
and a little more looking around, he added,

"Well, I am ready now to go and help you find your box. I see what I
have got to do here."

"What is it?" asked Phonny.

"I have got a small door to make, and a button for the large door, and
a ladder to get up to the loft. Then I have got to clear the hen-house
all out, and put it in order. What is in this barrel?"

"That is where the hens lay sometimes," said Phonny, "when they don't
lay in the barn."

So saying, Phonny walked into the corner where the barrel stood, and
there he found three eggs in the nest.

"Three eggs," said he. "I think Dorothy has not been out here to-day.
That is the beginning of your profits. You can take two of them; we
have to leave one for the nest-egg."

Phonny proposed that Stuyvesant should carry the eggs in, and give
them to Dorothy; but he said he would not do it then. He would leave
them where they were for the present, and go and look for the box.
Stuyvesant was intending to look, at the same time, for the materials
necessary for his door, his ladder, and his button.

Phonny, accordingly, led the way, and Stuyvesant followed, into
various apartments in the barns and sheds, where lumber was stored, or
where it might be expected to be found. There were several boxes in
these places, but some were too large, and others too small, and one,
which seemed about right in respect to size, was m