Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-05-23
CHAPTER I.
(Continued,)

Don't you say a word about fl
to Aunt Deel. Don't ever speak o
that miserable melon ag'in to any
body. You scoot around to the barr
an III be there in a minute anc
fix ye up"
He went by the road with the tea
and l ran around to the lane and
up to the stable Uncle Peabody
met me there in moment and
brought a pail of water and wash
ed my face so that felt and looked
more respectable.
eff Aunt Deel asks We about them
scratches you just tell her that you
and Hen had a little disagreement,
said my uncle.
She didn't ask me, probably be-
| cause Uncle Peabody had explained
in his own way, and requested her
to say nothing.
The worst was oyer for that day
but the Baynes- Wills feud had be-
gun. 1t led to many fight in the
| school yard and on the way home.
| We were so evenly matched that
! our quarrel went on for a long
time and gathered intensity as il
continued
One day Uncle Peabody had given
me an egg and said that there was
a chicken in it.
"All We have to do is to keep it
warm an the chicken will come to
] life. and when the hen is off the
7 nest some day it will see light
through the shell and peck its way
out" he explained.
He marked my initials on the
egg and put it under a hen and by
and by a little chicken came out of
the shell. 1 held it in my palma
| quivering, warm handful of yellow
don. Its helplessness appealed to
me and I fed and watched it every
day. Later my uncle told me that
it was a hen chick and would be
laying eggs in four months. He
added:
It's the only thing it can do, an
if its let alone it'll be sure to do
it. Follows kind of compass that
leads to the nest every time"
This chicken grew into little
spotted hen. She became my sole
companion in many a lonely hour
when Uncle Peabody had gone to
the village or was working in wet
ground, or on the hay rack, or the
moving machine where 1 couldn't
be with him. She was an amiable,
confiding little hen who put her
trust in me and kept it unto the day
of her death, which came not unuI
she had reached the full dignity OF
mature henhood.
She was like many things on the
farm-of great but unconsidered
beauty. No far-fetched pheasant
was half so beautiful as she. l had
always treated her with respect,
and she would let me come and sit
beside her while she rolled in the
dust and permit me to stroke her
head and examine her wonderful
dress of glossy notified satin. She
would spread her glowing sleeves
in the sunlike and let me feel their
downy lining with my fingers and
see how their taut, sung-fitting
plumes were set
I remember a day when she was
sitting on her nest with that curl
Gus expression in her eyes which
seemed to say, please don't both
err now for this is my busy time"
I brought three little kittens from
their basket in the wood-shed and
put them under her. The kittens
felt the warmth of her body and
began to new and stir about.
shall never forget the look of
establishment in the little hen as
she slowly rose in her nest and
peered beneath her body at the kit
tens. She looked at me as If to say
that she really couldn't be bothered
with those furry things any Ion ger
they made her so nervous. She
calmly took hold of one of them
with her bill and lifted it out of
the nest. She continued this pro-
cess of eviction until they were all
removed when she quietly sat down
again.
I mention this only to show that
the hen and had come to terms of
intimacy and mutual understand
ing. So when l saw Wills dog
catch and kill her in the field one
day. where she was hunting for
grasshoppers, I naturally enter
tanned a feeling of resentment. I