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68 glance at the place where my eggs were hidden in a hole under the barn, when, lo and behold, there was Joe Welch crawling out from under our barn with my eggs in a sack. Before he saw me I darted back into the house and watched him from the attic window. He looked all around, and then ran out of the barnyard, across the street to his own home and crawled under the house from the back. He was gone for fifteen minutes, and when he came out he brushed his clothes, looked all around, and seeing no one, went downtown, whistling a new tune our brass band had just received from the East. I saw that the day was all mine—I was born under a lucky star—so I ran and got a sack, for I smelled big business. Sack in hand, I crawled under Dr. Welch’s house, and away up in the darkest corner, next to the chimney, were the eggs with my own initials on them. There was a big heap altogether, and it seemed as if every egg that any goose, turkey, hen or guinea had laid in the neighborhood of Silverton for the last year was there. I wiped my eyes at first, then my heart began to beat so loudly that I was afraid Mrs. Welch, Joe’s mother,