"Couldn't you bring up one--or two--to-morrow morning _early_, and make a place and tuck 'em in here, under the step, and put back the sod, and fasten 'em up?" "What--_for_?" with wild amazement. "I can't do what I want to, just for an idea. It will make a noise, and I don't feel sure enough. There had better be a kitten. I'll tell you the rest to-morrow morning." And Ruth was up on her two little feet, and had given Stephen a kiss, and was back into the house, and round again to the balcony, before he could say another word. Boys like a plan, though; especially a mysterious getting-up-early plan; and if it has cats in it, it is always funny. He made up his mind to be on hand. Ruth was first, though. She kept her little bolt drawn all night, between her room and that of Barbara and Rose. At five o'clock, she went softly across the passage to Stephen's room, in her little wrapper and knit slippers. "I shall be ready in ten minutes," she whispered, right into his ear, and into his dream. "Scat!" cried Stephen, starting up bewildered. And Ruth "scatted." Down on the front piazza, twenty minutes after, she superintended the tucking in of the kittens, and then told him to bring a mallet and wedge. She had been very particular to have the kittens put under at a precise place, though there was a ready-made hole farther on. The cat babies mewed and sprawled and dragged themselves at feeble length on their miserable little legs, as small blind kittiewinks are given to doing. "They won't go far," said Ruth. "Now, let's take this board up." "What--_for_?" cried Stephen, again. "To get them out, of course," says Ruth. "Well, if girls ain't queer! Queerer than cats!" "Hush!" said Ruth, softly. "I _believe_--but I don't dare say a word yet--there's something there!" "Of course there is. Two little yowling--" "Something we all want found, Steve," Ruth whispered, earnestly. "But I don't know. Do hush! Make haste!" Stephen put down his face to the crack, and took a peep. Rather a long serious peep. When he took his face back again, "I _see_ something," he said. "It's white paper. Kind of white, that is. Do you suppose, Ruth--? My cracky! if you do!" "We won't suppose," said Ruth. "We'll hammer." Stephen knocked up the end of the board with the mallet, and then he got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a little smart levering, and the nails loosened, and one good wrench lifted it from the inside timber and they slid it out from under the house-boarding. Underneath lay a long, folded paper, much covered with drifts of dust, and speckled somewhat with damp. But it was a dry, sandy place, and weather had not badly injured it.