a luxurious sense of having made a good bargain, and done a
friendly thing.

Nat joyfully began his search, and went rustling from loft to loft
till he found two fine eggs, one hidden under a beam, and the other
in an old peck measure, which Mrs. Cockletop had appropriated.

"You may have one and I'll have the other, that will just make up
my last dozen, and to-morrow we'll start fresh.

Here, you chalk your accounts up near mine, and then we'll be all
straight," said Tommy, showing a row of mysterious figures on the
side of an old winnowing machine.

With a delightful sense of importance, the proud possessor of one
egg opened his account with his friend, who laughingly wrote
above the figures these imposing words,

"T. Bangs & Co."

Poor Nat found them so fascinating that he was with difficulty
persuaded to go and deposit his first piece of portable property in
Asia's store-room. Then they went on again, and having made the
acquaintance of the two horses, six cows, three pigs, and one
Alderney "Bossy," as calves are called in New England, Tommy
took Nat to a certain old willow-tree that overhung a noisy little
brook. From the fence it was an easy scramble into a wide niche
between the three big branches, which had been cut off to send out
from year to year a crowd of slender twigs, till a green canopy
rustled overhead. Here little seats had been fixed, and a hollow