et it," Meg replied, and ran up the ladder.

She felt around in the hay where she had buried the box, but she
couldn't find it. The other children came up and watched her
curiously, but still she couldn't feel anything like a box.

"What are you looking for?" said Dot curiously.

"For our lunch," Meg told her, almost ready to cry. "I put it under
the hay and now I can't find it."

Bobby and the twins hastily got down beside her and tossed the hay
around. They looked where Meg said she put the box and they looked
where she was sure it couldn't be, but all that happened was that they
got very warm and tired indeed and not one sign of the lunch did they
uncover.

"Do you know what I think?" said Twaddles wisely. "I think some rat
found it and ate it. I've seen rats up here in the loft, lots of
times."

Meg glanced around hastily. She wasn't at all anxious to see a rat.

"Rats couldn't eat the box and everything in it," Bobby argued. "They
would leave pieces of paper and things that we would see."

"Then where is the box?" demanded Dot.

Bobby sat down to think and Meg waited respectfully.

"We'll have to get a pitchfork and turn over all the hay," Bobby
decided. "That's the only way to find the box: it's lost in all this
hay."

He was willing to go and get the pitchfork, but he was gone several
minutes. When he came back, Jud was with him.

"Pitchforks and Twaddles won't mix," declared Jud firmly. "We'll have
to manage some other way. Show me where you hid the box, Meg."

Meg showed him, as nearly as she could remember. Jud knelt down and
felt under the hay, while the children stared at him as though they
expected him to work some kind of magic.

"I think I can find it," he announced. "You all sit down and close
your eyes tightly and don't open them till I give the word."

So they sat down on the floor and Dot put her head in Meg's lap, for
it was hard for her to keep her eyes closed. She always wanted to see
what was going on.

Meg counted to ninety-eight before she heard Jud cry, "All right!"

The four little Blossoms opened their eyes and there stood Jud, the
lunch box in his hand. He was smiling.

"How did you find it?" asked Meg. "Was it under the hay?"

"On top," said Jud mysteriously. "You see, Meg, the box fell through
the slats and landed on top of a ration of hay in one of the stalls.
All I had to do was to go downstairs and get it."

Linda had packed the box so neatly and so firmly that