Amid a great clucking and squawking, Johnnie Green and his father put Henrietta and her chicks into the pen and placed it in the back of the wagon.
"We're all ready!" Henrietta cried to Ebenezer. The old horse didn't even turn his head, for he could see backwards as well as forwards, because he wore no blinders. He made no direct reply to Henrietta, though he gave a sort of grunt, as if the whole affair did not please him. He knew that it was a long distance to the fairgrounds and the road was hilly.
"She thinks it a lark," he said to the dog Spot, who hung about as if he were waiting for something. "She's lucky, for she won't have to go on her own legs, for miles and miles."
"That's just what I intend to do," Spot informed him. "They don't mean to take me. But I'm going to follow you, right under the wagon, where Johnnie Green and his father can't see me."
So they started off. And they had scarcely passed through the gate when Henrietta began to clamor in her shrillest tones. But nobody paid any heed to her. The wagon clattered off down the road. And old dog Spot smiled to himself as he trotted along beneath it.
"Henrietta just remembered that she forgot to put on her best apron," he chuckled.