Victor took her objections good-naturedly. “Then shall I climb up?”
“Ye-es, I suppose you will have to,” admitted Lucie.
“I have it,” cried Victor wanting to indulge her. “I can back the cart into the shed. There is plenty of room, and you can stand on that and be perfectly sure of your footing.”
“Oh, Victor, what a perfectly lovely idea,” cried Lucie. And in a few minutes the cart was standing beneath the shelf while Lucie climbed upon it. She laughed down at Victor. “It cannot be said that one’s footing is so very sure after all, for the cart is so rickety.”
“I think it will hold out. I will stand by Long Ears so he will not bolt at a critical moment.”
Feeling herself doubly safe Lucie turned to view the shelf and what was thereon. But the instant the head appeared above the top came again a wild flutter of wings, and a second squawking hen, disturbed in her retreat, flew in an agony of fright down from her nest and directly upon the back of the donkey. Victor made a grab at her as she went sailing by in a second flight, and Master Long Ears no longer feeling a detaining hand, kicked up his heels and went clattering out the door, bearing Lucie frantically trying to keep her feet and to get hold of the reins.
Fortunately the donkey once outside stopped at sight of green fields and began deliberately to crop the grass. Lucie collapsed in a fit of mirth upon the floor of the cart. Victor came running out, at first alarmed, and then ready to join in her laughter.
“It is not meant that I should get at those eggs,” declared Lucie. “You will have to get them, Victor.”
Monsieur was wounded, night came, no one knew that he lay there, there were so many. The little dog knew and he went out to find him.