ones as they come along. Squabs are great fun; there ain’t any now,
but you can go up and take a look at the old fellows, while I see if
Cockletop and Granny have laid any eggs.”
Nat climbed up a ladder, put his head through a trap door and took
a long look at the pretty doves billing and cooing in their spacious
loft. Some on their nests, some bustling in and out, and some
sitting at their doors, while many went flying from the sunny
housetop to the straw-strewn farmyard, where six sleek cows were
placidly ruminating.
“Everybody has got something but me. I wish I had a dove, or a
hen, or even a turtle, all my own,” thought Nat, feeling very poor
as he saw the interesting treasures of the other boys. “How do you
get these things?” he asked, when he joined Tommy in the barn.
“We find ’em or buy ’em, or folks give ’em to us. My father sends
me mine; but as soon as I get egg money enough, I’m going to buy
a pair of ducks. There’s a nice little pond for ’em behind the barn,
and people pay well for duck-eggs, and the little duckies are pretty,
and it’s fun to see ’em swim,” said Tommy, with the air of a
millionaire.
Nat sighed, for he had neither father nor money, nothing in the
wide world but an old empty pocketbook, and the skill that lay in
his ten finger tips. Tommy seemed to understand the question and
the sigh which followed his answer, for after a moment of deep
thought, he suddenly broke out,
“Look here, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you will hunt eggs for me, I
hate it, I’ll give you one egg out of every dozen. You keep account,
and when you’ve had twelve, Mother Bhaer will give you
twenty-five cents for ’em, and then you can buy what you like,
don’t you see?”
“I’ll do it! What a kind feller you are, Tommy!” cried Nat, quite
dazzled by this brilliant offer.
“Pooh! that is not anything. You begin now and rummage the barn,
and I’ll wait here for you. Granny is cackling, so you’re sure to find
one somewhere,” and Tommy threw himself down on the hay with
a luxurious sense of having made a good bargain, and done a
friendly thing.
Nat joyfully began his search, and went rustling from loft to loft
till he found two fine eggs, one hidden under a beam, and the other
in an old peck measure, which Mrs. Cockletop had appropriated.
“You may have one and I’ll have the other, that will just make up
my last dozen, and to-morrow we’ll start fresh.
Here, you chalk your accounts up near mine, and then we’ll be all
straight,” said Tommy, showing a row of mysterious figures on the
side of an old winnowing machine.
With a delightful sense of importance, the proud possessor of one
egg opened his account with his friend, who laughingly wrote
above the figures these imposing words,
“T. Bangs & Co.”
Poor Nat found them so fascinating that he was with difficulty
persuaded to go and deposit his first piece of portable property in
Asia’s store-room. Then they went on again, and having made the
acquaintance of the two horses, six cows, three pigs, and one
Alderney “Bossy,” as calves are called in New England, Tommy
took Nat to a certain old willow-tree that overhung a noisy little
brook. From the fence it was an easy scramble into a wide niche
between the three big branches, which had been cut off to send out
from year to year a crowd of slender twigs, till a green canopy
rustled overhead. Here little seats had been fixed, and a hollow
place a closet made big enough to hold a book or two, a
dismantled boat, and several half-finished whistles.
“This is Demi’s and my private place; we made it, and nobody can
come up unless we let ’em, except Daisy, we don’t mind her,” said
Tommy, as Nat looked with delight from the babbling brown water
below to the green arch above, where bees were making a musical