birthday, and that till then I would keep it a secret
from her, as from all the world; so I refrained.

The next morning I told my master what the old Quaker
had directed about the fence, and I took his order for
the new lumber we should need to raise the height as was
proposed. At the same time I told him that we were all
annoyed at the need of carrying our tools back and forth,
and because we could only take the nails for one
day's use; and that, if he were willing, I had a mind to
risk an old chest I had with the nails in it and a few
tools, which I thought I could so hide that the wharf-
rats and other loafers should not discover it. He told
me to do as I pleased, that he would risk the nails if I
would risk my tools; and so, by borrowing what we call a
hand-cart for a few days, I was able to take up my own
little things to the lot without his asking any other
questions, or without exciting the curiosity of
McLoughlin or any other of the men. Of course, he would
have sent up in the shop-wagon anything we needed; but it
was far out of the way, and nobody wanted to drive the
team back at night if we could do without. And so, as
night came on, I left the men at their work, and having
loaded my hand-cart with a small chest I had, I took that
into the alley-way of which I told you before, carried my
box of tools into the corner between the church and our
fence, under the boards which we had set up that day, and
covered it heavily, with McLoughlin's help, with joists
and boards, so that no light work would remove them, if,
indeed, any wanderer of the night suspected that the box