“I’ll bury it in the hay, before Twaddles comes up,” said Meg to herself. “He always wants to eat everything up right away.”

She peeped over the edge of the haymow and saw the twins, one on either side of Bobby, staring up. They looked funny, for their mouths were open and Meg giggled a little.

“Send the basket back,” Twaddles called. “We want to put something in it.”

“All right wait a minute,” answered Meg.

She ran back and hastily stuffed the lunch box under the hay, pulling a pile over it so that it did not show at all. Then she rushed to the edge of the mow, but she was in such haste not to keep the others waiting that she dropped the basket, rope and all.

It rapped Dot on the head and she looked astonished.

“I don’t see why you threw it at me,” she said resentfully.

“I didn’t,” Meg explained. “I forgot to hold the rope. Shall I come down and get it?”

“Twaddles will bring you the rope,” said Bobby. “Soon as I put something in the basket. Let’s see, what shall we put in next?”

“There’s Poots,” Dot suggested, pointing to the cat who had followed them.

“I don’t think she’ll like it,” objected Meg, but Bobby was eager to send the cat aloft and he and Twaddles together managed to stuff her in the basket.

Bobby held her there while Twaddles took one end of the rope in his hand and scrambled up the ladder to the waiting Meg.

“Where did you put the lunch?” he asked as soon as he reached the loft.

“I put it away,” Meg assured him. “Are you going to help me pull the basket up, Twaddles?”

Twaddles was eager to help and he forgot the lunch. He stood back of Meg and they both began to pull. Poots meowed sadly as she felt herself rising and Bobby and Dot shouted to the pullers to “hurry up.”

“Poots will jump out in a minute,” warned Bobby.

Twaddles’ foot slipped on the soft hay and he went down, slackening his hold on the rope as he fell. Meg turned to see what had happened to him, let the rope sag, and the basket fell a foot or two with sickening speed.

This was too much for any self-respecting cat and with a wild snarl Poots leaped clear over the heads of Bobby and Dot. The angry cat landed on his feet on the barn floor ten feet away, and dashed out into the rain. Getting his fur coat soaking wet was preferable to being hoisted about in a basket, he seemed to say.

“What did you do to Poots?” called Jud. “When he went out of that door, his tail was two feet around!”

“We were only playing with him,” Bobby said. “But maybe he didn’t like it much.”

“If you have time to play with the cat, you have time to help me,” declared Jud. “Don’t you and Meg want to come and help me see if this sheller is going to work?”

Bobby and Meg loved to help Jud and they left their game cheerfully, to go to the corncrib. It was attached to the other end of the barn, so they didn’t have to go out in the rain. Jud wanted to watch the machinery he had mended and he asked Meg to turn the crank and Bobby to feed in the ears of corn. They were never allowed to touch the sheller unless some older person was around, for little fingers could get easily nipped in the cog wheels. So they were rather proud to be especially asked to help Jud make it work.

“I thought the twins were coming,” said Jud, absently, bending down to tighten a screw.

“They must have stayed to play with the basket,” Meg replied.

And that was just what the twins were doing, playing with the basket.

“You put something in it and let me pull it up,” commanded Dot.

“I haven’t anything to put in it,” Twaddles offered. “The cat’s gone.”

“Well you don’t have to have a cat,” said Dot impatiently. “I know what we can get eggs!”

There were always two or three hens that persisted in stealing their nests and the twins had a fair idea of where these stolen nests were in the barn. They often found the eggs and took them in to Linda.

Now, after a few minutes’ search, they found seven eggs and put them in the basket with great glee.

“Let me pull it up after you do?” asked Twaddles as Dot climbed up the ladder.

“Well perhaps,” she replied carefully. “I might want to pull it up more than once myself.”

She began to pull on the rope and the basket dangled in the air. Whether the sound of voices made Dot nervous, or whether the basket was heavier than she had expected, it is hard to say. But just as Jud and Bobby and Meg came out on the barn floor, Dot let that basket fall.

“Good grief!” exclaimed Jud.

Twaddles seemed glued to one spot and the basket crashed down almost under his nose. The eggs broke and some splashed up and sprayed him, but most of the contents ran out on the floor in a bright yellow stream.

“You took eggs!” Meg said accusingly.

“Well, nobody said not to,” answered Dot in a rather frightened voice, peering over the edge of the loft.

“All right, I’ll say it now,” Jud proclaimed. “After this, it is against the rules to put anything in the basket which will break. Remember that. And now, let me see if I can wipe you off, Twaddles.”

Jud found a cloth and mopped the egg off Twaddles fortunately not much had reached him and then Dot suggested that they do something else.

“We could eat,” Twaddles said placidly, which made Jud laugh.

“I’m going to start feeding the stock, so perhaps it isn’t too early for you to have lunch,” he said. “That is one sure way to keep the twins quiet, Meg.”

Dot called after him that she hadn’t said anything about eating, but Jud didn’t hear her. He was already measuring out corn for the horses.

“Where is the lunch?” asked Bobby, who began to feel hungry himself.

“I know I’ll get it,” Meg replied, and ran up the ladder.

She felt around in the hay where she had buried the box, but she couldn’t find it. The other children came up and watched her curiously, but still she couldn’t feel anything like a box.

“What are you looking for?” said Dot curiously.

“For our lunch,” Meg told her, almost ready to cry. “I put it under the hay and now I can’t find it.”

Bobby and the twins hastily got down beside her and tossed the hay around. They looked where Meg said she put the box and they looked where she was sure it couldn’t be, but all that happened was that they got very warm and tired indeed and not one sign of the lunch did they uncover.

“Do you know what I think?” said Twaddles wisely. “I think some rat found it and ate it. I’ve seen rats up here in the loft, lots of times.”

Meg glanced around hastily. She wasn’t at all anxious to see a rat.

“Rats couldn’t eat the box and everything in it,” Bobby argued. “They would leave pieces of paper and things that we would see.”

“Then where is the box?” demanded Dot.

Bobby sat down to think and Meg waited respectfully.

“We’ll have to get a pitchfork and turn over all the hay,” Bobby decided. “That’s the only way to find the box: it’s lost in all this hay.”

He was willing to go and get the pitchfork, but he was gone several minutes. When he came back, Jud was with him.

“Pitchforks and Twaddles won’t mix,” declared Jud firmly. “We’ll have to manage some other way. Show me where you hid the box, Meg.”

Meg showed him, as nearly as she could remember. Jud knelt down and felt under the hay, while the children stared at him as though they expected him to work some kind of magic.

“I think I can find it,” he announced. “You all sit down and close your eyes tightly and don’t open them till I give the word.”

So they sat down on the floor and Dot put her head in Meg’s lap, for it was hard for her to keep her eyes closed. She always wanted to see what was going on.

Meg counted to ninety-eight before she heard Jud cry, “All right!”

The four little Blossoms opened their eyes and there stood Jud, the lunch box in his hand. He was smiling.

“How did you find it?” asked Meg. “Was it under the hay?”

“On top,” said Jud mysteriously. “You see, Meg, the box fell through the slats and landed on top of a ration of hay in one of the stalls. All I had to do was to go downstairs and get it.”

Linda had packed the box so neatly and so firmly that nothing was damaged and the children had a delightful picnic up in the loft. They played there most of the afternoon, too, and often during the rainy days that followed. Indeed they amused themselves so well and were so little trouble to Aunt Polly, that she promised them one more outdoor picnic, the first dry sunny day that came.

“Be sure you save me some sandwiches,” said Peter, when he heard about it.

They promised and it was Dot who woke up the household bright and early when she saw the sun streaming in at the window.

“We can have the picnic!” she shouted joyfully. “Aunt Polly, isn’t it dry and sunny? Get up, Twaddles, we can have the picnic.”

It was a sunny day, but it wasn’t so dry, for the ground was still damp from so much rain.

“But if we go wading, the water’s wet,” argued Dot, and Linda, too, thought they might as well go.

“Don’t forget my sandwiches,” Peter reminded them as he saw them start.