She entered the barn slyly and stole down behind the stalls until she came opposite the perches. The chickens were settling themselves for the night, moving and murmuring drowsily. As she peeped among them, her glance fell upon Sassy, outlined against the small square window beyond and roosted comfortably with her beak toward the manger, all unconscious of her nearing doom. The little girl was certain that it was she, for there was no mistaking the rakish lop of the serrated comb, or the once white under-feathers soiled to a bluish cast.
The little girl waited, restraining the excited pointer, until the light had faded from the square window. It was then so dark that the chickens could not see the malevolent fingers that, thrust softly up among them, grabbed a leghorn's shanks; and there was only a mildly concerned "k-r-r-r!" from an old, watchful hen as the little girl retreated, one hand doing almost fatal duty around an ill-starred neck.
By the time that the little girl, triumphantly bearing both her prey, heads down, reached the mounting-log at the front door of the house, where the eldest brother awaited her with the hatchet, it was nearly as dark outside as it had been in the barn. So the eldest brother—for the little girl had hurried away after giving him the chickens—could not tell which leghorn suffered the guillotine first. His sanguinary work being done, the little girl returned and carried the dead fowls into the coal-shed, where she tied their toes together and hung them over a nail.
Early next morning the eldest brother was awakened by a prolonged falsetto crow,—the familiar disturbing salute of the chanticleer he had beheaded the night before! Puzzled and wondering, he got up, ran to the eastern window of the attic, and looked down upon the yard. An amazing discovery repaid his promptness. For, as the chicken once more raised its voice, he saw that the mysterious rooster was still alive! So was Sassy! They were combined in one and the same bird! Two innocent chickens had been sacrificed!
So, until the next spring,—the spring following the fire, and one ever memorable for its wonderful grass and flowers, its gentle rains and windless, sunny days,—Sassy continued to exasperate the family, winning only censure. But when the depleted flock could not furnish half the eggs the family needed, she took it upon herself to lay one daily, and was considerate ate enough to render it unnecessary for the little girl to go out and bring it in, by depositing it in the hay-twist box behind the kitchen stove, in the linen-barrel in the entry, or on the canopied bed. Then she found an appreciative friend in the little girl's mother, who, whenever she heard a proud, discordant announcement, half crow, half cackle, blessed the little white hen as she hurried to secure the offering.
One afternoon during Sassy's career of prolificacy, the little girl remembered that her best thick dress was so threadbare that she would need a brand-new one for the next winter. She found, too, that if she was to have one she must devise a way to swell the small amount in the tin savings-bank; for the big brothers declared they would be able only to pay the heavy debt upon the farm and victual the house for the stormy months to follow. So she hit upon the idea of raising chickens, and broached it to her mother. The latter, remembering the sorry Christmas just past, at once presented her with Sassy, promising that all the eggs the leghorn laid should be credited to the little girl at the general merchandise store at the station, and that all the chicks hatched out by Sassy should go the same way.
The little girl was jubilant over the plan, and each morning answered the "cut-cut-c't-a-a-ah-cut" of her hen with a gift of crumbs, and then took possession of the new-laid egg, placing it carefully in a cracker-box. When, at the end of as many days, a dozen eggs lay side by side, she took them out, wrapped each one in paper, packed them all in a lard-bucket full of shorts, and, mounting the blue mare, rode to the station, where she had the satisfaction of seeing eleven cents put opposite her name in the egg-book at the general merchandise store.
This was repeated four times, and, the price of eggs having gone up a few cents in each interval, the little girl had sixty cents to put in her bank, which raised her total to one dollar fifty-nine. On her June birthday the family presented her with four dimes; the week after she sold a wooden squirt-gun to the neighbor woman's son for five cents. It was then plain that, if Sassy should continue to furnish eggs faithfully, the dress was assured.
But at this happy juncture, and, womanlike, without a single cluck of warning, the leghorn ceased her diurnal laying, and, after a spasmodic week, during which she scattered three or four eggs on the little girl's bed, gave no further sign of justifying her existence.
The little girl was in despair, and at once confided Sassy's delinquency to the eldest brother, who knew a great deal about chickens. He said that a leghorn was an all-year-round layer, and that when a hen of the breed failed to uphold the standard of her kind she was fit only for broiling. The youngest brother, overhearing the account of Sassy's conduct and the eldest brother's comments, volunteered the opinion that nothing ailed the chicken but the pip, and advised fat and pepper. But when three days had gone by and the leghorn, with generous doses of axle-grease and cayenne, ailed rather than recovered, the little girl ceased her administrations.