Jessie stood for a few minutes looking out and then she, too, left the room. It was time to feed the chickens and after that her father would be coming in. The corn had been harvested and stood stacked in the fields. Jessie thought the stacks looked very much like Indian wigwams and she pictured to herself her terror if they really were such. However, the terror was not very keen and was soon forgotten when she reached the spot where the fowls were jostling one another and pecking eagerly at the corn Minerva was scattering on the ground. Minerva was the servant who had lived in the family ever since she was a little girl. She was very fond of Jessie and the two often had long talks about the chickens, the pigeons, the ducks and the turkeys.
“There’s two young turkeys missing,” said Minerva as Jessie appeared. “After I get through here you can go ’long with me if you like and look ’em up. You’re a right good hand for spying ’em out and they do beat everything for wandering.”
“I believe I know where they are,” Jessie told her. “I shouldn’t wonder if they were over there where the mountain cherries grow. I’ve seen them there lots of times.”
“Then that’s where we’ll look for ’em,” said Minerva, scattering another handful of corn. “They’re big enough now not to care much about being with the old ones, and I have to keep an eye on ’em.”
“Have you fed the young chickens yet?” asked Jessie. “How fast they do eat, Minerva. Look at that great piggy rooster driving away that smaller one. I never did like that old yellow fellow, anyhow.”
“He is kind of greedy,” agreed Minerva. “No, I haven’t fed the young chickens. You can mix the meal if you like. Don’t make it too wet like you did last time. Mrs. Speckle is a little droopy; she don’t take her food well at all. She’s such a good layer, I hope there’s nothing wrong with her.”
Jessie moved away to get the meal. Two measures of it she carefully piled up in the tin box which she found in the bin. This she emptied into a pan and then she poured in a little water at a time, stirring it with a spoon at first, and then with her whole hand. She liked the operation, and was so interested in squeezing the wet meal that Minerva finally had to call her.
“If you’re going to help me hunt those turkeys, you’d better hurry with that meal,” she said.
Jessie carried the tin pan to the enclosure where the young chickens were making a great fuss, poking their heads between the slats and peeping anxiously. But their peeping soon stopped as Jessie scattered little dabs of the food on the ground. “Don’t gather the eggs till I come,” she called to Minerva whom she saw searching the nests.
“Obliged to,” returned Minerva, “or there’ll be no time to look up the turkeys. It gets dark so much sooner these days, you know.”