or.
My feet made no sound, and it so happened that the door didn't either,
and as I started to open it. I saw Leon disappearing down the
stairway, with a big sack on his back. I thought it was corn for the
horses, and followed him, but he went to the cow stable door and
started toward the lane, and then I thought it was for the pigs, so I
called Laddie and told him about the eggs. He said he'd give me two
dozen of his, and Leon could pay him back. We went together to get
them, and there was only one there.

Wasn't that exactly like Leon? Leave ONE for the nest egg! If he were
dying and saw a joke or a trick, he'd stop to play it before he
finished, if he possibly could. If he had no time at all, then he'd go
with his eyes twinkling over the thoughts of the fun it would have been
if he possibly could have managed it. Of course when we saw that one
lonely egg in the cider hopper, just exactly like the "Last Rose of
Summer, left to pine on the stem," I thought of the sack Leon carried,
and knew what had been in it. We hurried out and tried to find him,
but he was swallowed up. You couldn't see him or hear a sound of him
anywhere.

Mother was as cross as she ever gets. Right there she made a new rule,
and it was that two dozen eggs must be brought to the house each day,
whether any were hidden or not. She had to stop baking until she got
eggs. She said a few times she had used a goose egg in custard. I
could fix that. I knew where one of our gray geese had a nest, and if
she'd cook any goose egg, it would be a gray one. Of course I had
sense enough not to take a blue one. So I slipped from the east door,
crossed the yard and orchard corner, climbed the fence and went down
the lane. There was the creek up and tearing. It was half over the
meadow, and the floodgate between the pasture and the lane rocked with
the rush of water; still, I believed I could make it. So I got on the
fence and with my feet on the third rail, and holding by the top one, I
walked sidewise, and so going reached the floodgate. It was pretty
wobbly, but I thought I could cross on the run. I knew I could if I
dared jump at the other end; but there the water was over the third
rail, and that meant above my head.

It was right at that time of spring when you felt so good you thought
you could do most anything, except fly--I tried that once--so I went
on. The air was cold for all the sun shone, the smell of catkin
pollen, bursting