The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-10-27

III W pdiipSi ShS tiSho, hSAo
was such a %whinnying and stamping
of feet as you never heard; and when
Mrs. Tuppins came out at last with
te- pan Of corn-and was at once
assailed by her faithful but riotous
hens-her face was as rosy as could
be, and her eyes were as bright as
diamonds.
Another thing. too: one cannot
keep going into a garden for carrots
and greens without noticing things.
One cannot enter a garden, for in
stance, with closed eyes and grope
| round to the carrots and come out
the same way; and especially is this
true if there are six hives of bees in
the garden!
So by degrees Mrs. Tuppins began
to notice the tomatoes, the plum
trees, the p%aTsnips. the currants. the
flower borders. the beans, the lettuce,
the raspberries, and all the other de-
lights that lay just back of the house.
And when one gets so far, one pulls
a few weeds, perhaps, or waters the
flowers, or eats a few ~raspberries
while wondering if the plums will
soon be ripe.
When one is as bucolic as all that,
it is distinctly irritating to be set at
naught by a cross old hen that keeps
growing crankiCr and crankier, and
refuses to respond to scientific agri-
cultural treatment.
Old Spotty remained obdurate. She
seemed to think that they wanted her
to set, and she would not go near
the coop. Then she apparently con-
sidered that they were trying to keep
her out of the chicken-house, and she
refused to come off the nest. Still try
ing to pamper her, Mrs. Tuppins
slipped a dozen eggs under her, and
in due course of time Old Spotty was
leading ten little chicks around,
clucking at them peevishly, pecking
at them for nothing at all, and look
at them as if she had more trouble
than enough.
Now one night, when this foolish
fowl had been covered up in her little
triangular pen, the same being placed
near a similar pen which another hen
occupied with her five little chicks,
there suddenly rose such a commo-
ton that Mrs. Tuppins ran out to see.
All of Old Spotty's chicks had de-
serted their peevish and pecking
mother, and the other hen, whose
family had suddenly grown from five
to fifteen, was so pulled up with con-
ceit that she looked double her nat
ural size, and could only with great
difficulty see out of her eyes.
And they were the merriest fifteen
little chicks that ever peeped-play-
ing tag beneath the conceited hens
wings, playing blind mans buff and
puss-in-the-corner and hide-and-seek
and similar games, putting their
heads out from time to time, as if to
take the air, and popping back in
again, as If they had suddenly re-
membered a most urgent and delight
full appointment! But as for Old
Spotty, imprisoned in her coop and
seeing the error of her ways now that
it was too late, she was almost fran
tic. Such squawking! Such cluck-
ing! Such terrible threats to the
puffed-up hen! Such anxious calls to
the merry little chicks!
Finally one little fellow, that per-
haps had not found a comfortable
place, or had been sit" in the games
too often to suit him, tumbled out of
his new quarters and scampered back
beneath Old Spotty's wings. And if
you had seen and heard the rejoicing
of that happy mother and the gentle
way she cuddled him with her wing,
and the tender way she clucked at
him, it would have touched you as it
touched Mrs. Tuppins as she went
slowly back to the house.
William" she said. after eating a
very silent supper, "you know the
way you love the cows and the horses
and the chickens and the garden and
the bees and the woods and every
thing?"
"Yes," said William, miserably,
once more.
"Well," said Mrs. Tuppins, with
cheeks that put the roses to shame,
and eyes that left the diamonds SIM
ply nowhere, "well-so do H.
Youths Companion.