tracks
betrayed him,' as tracks do all of us, if we are careless enough to
leave any. The eggs are yours, and to-night is the time to produce
them. Where do you want to hide them?"

Well of all things! and after I had stumbled on them without pestering
the Lord, either! Just as slick as anything! Mine! I never ever
thought of it. But when I did think, I liked it. The more I thought,
the funnier it grew.

"Under mother's bed," I whispered. "But I never can get them. They're
in wheat sacks, and full so high, and they'll have to be handled like
eggs."

"I'll do the carrying," laughed father. "Come show me!"

So we took all those eggs, and put them under mother's bed.

Of course she and Candace saw us, but they didn't hunt eggs and they'd
never tell. If ever I thought I'd burst wide open! About dusk I saw
Leon coming from the barn carrying his hat at his side--more eggs--so I
ran like a streak and locked the front door, and then slipped back in
the dining-room and almost screamed, when I could hear him trying it,
and he couldn't get in. After a while he came in, fussed around, and
finally went into the sitting-room, and the key turned and he went
upstairs. I knew I wouldn't dare look at him when he came down, so I
got a reader and began on a piece I just love:

"A nightingale made a mistake;
She sang a few notes out of tune:
Her heart was ready to break,
And she hid away from the moon."

When I did get a peep, gracious but he was black! Maybe it wasn't
going to be so much fun after all. But he had the money last year, and
the year before, and if he'd cleaned his feet well--I was not hunting
his eggs, when I found them. "His tracks betrayed him," as father
said. I was thankful supper was ready just then, and while it was
going on mother said: "As soon as you finish, all bring in your eggs.
I want to wrap the ones to colour to-night, and bury them in the
fireplace so they will colour, dry, and be ready to open in the
morning."

No one said a word, but neither Laddie nor Leon looked very happy, and
I took awful bites to keep my face straight. When all of us finished
May brought a lot from the bran barrel in the smoke house, but Laddie
and Leon only sat there and looked silly; it really was funny.

"I must have more eggs than this?" said mother. "Where are they to
come from?"

Father nodded to me and I said: "From under your bed!"

"Oh, it was you! And I never once caught yo