the house'll burn up or git broke into."

"We can hide 'em where no burglar can find 'em," said Mr. Ducklow.

"Yes, and where nobody else can find 'em, neither, provided the house
burns and neighbors come in to save things. I don't know but it'll be
about as Miss Beswick said: we sha'n't take no comfort with property we
ought to make over to Reuben."

"Do _you_ think it ought to be made over to Reuben? If you do, it's new
to me!"

"No, I don't!" replied Mrs. Ducklow, decidedly. "I guess we better put
'em in the clock-case for to-night, hadn't we?"

"Jest where they'd be discovered, if the house is robbed! No: I've an
idee. Slip 'em under the settin'-room carpet. Let me take 'em: I can fix
a place right here by the side of the door."

With great care and secrecy the bonds were deposited between the carpet
and the floor, and a chair set over them.

"What noise was that?" said the farmer, starting.

"Thaddeus," cried Mrs. Ducklow, "is that you?"

It was Thaddeus, indeed, who, awaking from a real dream of the drum this
time, and, hearing conversation in the room below, had once more
descended the stairs to listen. What were the old people hiding there
under the carpet? It must be those curious things in the envelope. And
what _were_ those things, about which so much mystery seemed necessary?
Taddy was peeping and considering, when he heard his name called. He
would have glided back to bed again, but Mrs. Ducklow, who sprang to the
stairway-door, was too quick for him.

"What do you want now?" she demanded.

"I--I want you to scratch my back," said Taddy.

As he had often come to her with this innocent request, after undressing
for bed, he did not see why the excuse would not pass as readily as the
previous one of somnambulism. But Mrs. Ducklow was in no mood to be
trifled with.

"I'll scratch your back for ye!" And seizing her rattan, she laid it
smartly on the troublesome part, to the terror and pain of poor Taddy,
who concluded that too much of a good thing was decidedly worse than
nothing. "There, you Sir, that's a scratching that 'll last ye for one
while!"

And giving him two or three parting cuts, not confined to the region of
the back, but falling upon the lower latitudes, which they marked like
so many geographical parallels, she dismissed him with a sharp
injunction not to let himself be seen or heard again that night.

Taddy obeyed, and, crying himself to sleep, dreamed that he was himself
a dru