CHAPTER XV
Picking Chickens
"Do you want to come out and set with me in the woodshed while I pick a couple o' chicken?" Grandfather asked one morning at the breakfast table.
"Ye—es," said his granddaughter.
"I don't mind picking a chicken, but I do like encouragement while I'm a-doing of it. All the pesky little pin feathers stick twice as tight when I'm alone with 'em."
"When do you begin?" Elizabeth faltered.
"Soon's I can get to it. First I catch my chickens. After you have heard them squawking for a while, you get your knitting and come out to the shed."
"When he cuts off their heads, I just about pass into Kingdom Come," said Judidy. "I hate to hear them squawking as much as I hate to hear a pig stuck."
"Oh, do you cut off their heads?" Elizabeth asked, faintly.
"Well, I wring their necks first."