“Dear me!” said Mrs. Wood, “Franklin and I will build him a little house this afternoon.”
The house was a very simple affair,—only a little pointed coop, like those made for hens with chickens; but it was not so simple to get Johnny into it at night. Franklin would softly approach on his blind side, and put out one hand very softly until it nearly touched him, when the surprised fowl would give a wild skip of terror, and scurry across the yard. Then he would recover his dignity, remark, “And-a-cut-cut-cut,” flap his wing, wink his eye, and apparently forget the matter.
This would be repeated until Franklin weaned of attacks by stealth, and bore down upon him in open battle, assisted by the whole family. They would chase him round and round the house, going in different directions to head him off; but when finally cornered, he would duck and hop with great screeches of wrath, and slip from under their very hands.
After a few of these bed-time races, his tail feathers passed away, leaving him a fowl of unclad and forbidding appearance. People passing the house asked, “What kind of a bird is that?” But nobody seemed to know.
“Poor Johnny!” Mrs. Wood said, “why is it, Franklin, that you always catch him by the tail?”
“Why, Mother, you must remember that his tail is the last chance I ever get!”
The kittens liked to chase him in the daytime, so altogether he took plenty of exercise, and, it is to be hoped, rested well at night.
One evening, during the pursuit, he plunged headlong into a neighbor’s cesspool, and swam out a smaller bird than when he had entered. But nobody tried to catch him that night, and his crow was so hoarse the next morning that the Lanes thought he must have taken cold. The experience may have taught him something, for the next time that the family went out to catch him, he was nowhere to be found. And it was not until Franklin happened to fall over the chicken-coop, on his return to the house, that a mottled sob from within revealed Johnny’s whereabouts. He had given up the fight, and gone to bed by himself!
Flossy, the bantam, also developed strange ideas in her new surroundings, and persisted in going to roost every night on Mrs. Wood’s foot. Her mornings she spent in playing with the rabbits, and laying a great many little white eggs.
Because of her small size, Samuel’s baby bunnies took her for one of themselves, and invited her to join in all their games, while Skipperty became her dearest friend, and would dig holes for her with his strong little front paws. She would hunt through one hole carefully for bugs, and then start scratching in a new place, calling Skipperty, with enticing hen-noises, to come and dig for her. The two wandered all over the cottage together,—sometimes appearing upstairs, where Eunice, kept certain cigar boxes in which she was raising beans and bananas. At least bananas had been planted, but they never came up, and something else was usually planted on top of them. One day it was carrots, and the loveliest little fuzz of green had begun to show above the earth; but that same night it was gone, and Eunice said, “It makes me feel as if I’d pretended the whole thing. Biddy, where do you s’pose it went to?”