"They are up to something then. I wouldn't be surprised if they were out in the yard driving nails into the fence and benches."
As she ran through the hall, she heard a muffled meow coming from under the staircase and saw there what looked like a heap of carpet with a hassock on top of it. Again came the meow. "Surely, Fluff can't be under there. The poor little thing would be smothered." She lifted the hassock and a thick rug and found a bushel basket carefully covered with a barrel head which began to move. She raised it, and out sprang the pretty Angora kitten which the Doctor had brought to her little sisters a few evenings before. Down the hall toward the kitchen it fled, and Mary hurried out the side door to the yard. No sign of the children there, and Tom in the barn had not seen them that morning. She searched the basement and then returned through the kitchen and dining-room to the front hall, where she decided that they must have gone up the back stairs while she was coming down the front ones. Just outside the dining-room door she paused. Surely, that was a whisper. There it was again. "Yes, she's gone. Goody!" The table cloth, which had not been taken off after breakfast, hung nearly to the floor. Mary lifted one corner of it, and three pairs of eyes, dancing with mischief, met hers.
"Sh! sh! we's making Daddy a s'prise—a most beauty, grand s'prise." Berta pointed to the box of nails before them and to the box cover in which lay a number of them carefully wrapped in white tissue paper. The hammer, also well wrapped, was near by.
"But how is Father going to fasten the covers on his boxes of books if you pack all his nails?"
"Oh, I'se quite sure Tom has plenty of nails and hammers and all things same as that in his big box in the barn——plenty!"
"Then why did Father go to the store last evening to buy these, Beth? He has looked everywhere for them and can't imagine what has become of them. Surely, when he has nailed your box up so nicely for you, you won't be so stingy as to take his hammer and all his nails from him."
"But——but you don't misstand, Mary. We's making a s'prise for Daddy."
"But Father would rather have his hammer and nails, Berta. It is too bad to spoil the surprise; but I know what we can do. Put all the nails that you have wrapped so nicely into the box cover, and I shall ask Father to try to get along with those in the box. If there are any left, you can pack them later; and it won't be very much trouble to wrap the hammer again."
The three looked rather mournful as they crept out from under the table.
"Oh, I almost forgot about it. Do you know anything about the telephone book?"