we were left to go without, or take up with such rude and
simple ones as we could manufacture for ourselves.

I wanted a small box very much. A handsome little trunk, such as most of
my young readers probably have, was too much to hope for, and a plain
wooden box, even, I had no means to purchase.

I went without for a long time, and at last determined that I would try
to make one. But the materials,--where was I to obtain them? True, my
father had pieces of thin boards that would answer, but there were
nails, and hinges, and a lock wanting. Where were these to come from?

After trying a variety of methods, I invented a plan for fastening it
without a lock, and leather made a very good substitute for hinges, as
it was to be out of sight. Still, I wanted nails. There were some old
ones about the house, but they were crooked, and broken, and rusty.
These would not answer if anything better could be obtained.

My uncle, who at this time lived but a short distance from us, was
engaged in building, and I watched the barrel of bright new nails his
workmen were using, with a longing eye. O, how I coveted them!

The temptation was too great. I sought the opportunity while the hands
were at dinner, and, after cautiously looking about to see that no one
was near to observe me, with trembling hands seized upon them, _and
stole enough to make my box_. O! how my heart beat as I hurried away
across the fields home. I almost expected to see some one start up from
every stump and bush on the way, to accuse me of the theft. I hardly
dared to look behind me. It seemed as though my old uncle, with frowning
brow, was at my very heels. And then, too, the workmen;--were they not
suspicious from my hanging about them, and had not some of them watched
me? So horrid images began to dance about my brain. Dim visions of
court-rooms, and lawyers, and judges, and prisons, and sorrowing
parents, and frightened brothers and sisters, rose in awful terror
before me. I began to grow dizzy and faint. I had laid up, for a long
time, all the pennies I could obtain, which, at that time, amounted to
the vast sum of twenty cents, contained in an old-fashioned pistareen;
and the hope sprung up in my heart, that, possibly, by paying this to
the officers, they would not carry me to jail.

Thought was busy in laying plans for escape, and I reached home in the
greatest excitement imaginable.

Well, the deed was now done, and I could not undo it. I was really