"Where are they?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired.
Thorne suddenly stooped over the big coal-oil can.
"I was almost forgetting them; they're here. Dave should have fished them out some time ago."
Alison glanced into the improvised cauldron and saw to her astonishment what looked like a mass of bedraggled fowls.
"Oh," she cried, "have you boiled them with their feathers on?"
"Well," replied Thorne, somewhat ruefully, "I certainly didn't mean to. In fact, I put them in to bring their feathers off, though I've hitherto generally done it beneath the blow-down valve of a thrashing engine."
He turned to his young companion.
"Be quick! Fish them out!"
The lad did it with a strip of shingle, and when a number of dripping birds were strewed upon the grass Alison was more astonished still.
"Where have their heads gone?" she exclaimed.