“She did it herself,” cried the exasperated Peggy. “She deliberately stood on top of it and crushed the life out of it. When I came out it was too far gone to peep, and she was looking around as if she wondered where the noise had come from. But by the time I could make her move, the poor little thing was dead.”
It was the general verdict that the conduct of the yellow hen was reprehensible in the extreme. The comments passed upon her would have been sufficient to make her wince, had she been a hen of any sensibility. But regardless of the disapproval so openly expressed, she continued to scratch and summon her brood, with every indication of being perfectly satisfied with herself.
“Six little Indians stole honey from a hive,
A busy bee got after one and then there were but five.”
Peggy looked at Graham as if she did not know whether to laugh or be angry. Being Peggy, she, of course, settled the question in favor of the first-named alternative, though even as she dimpled, she told Graham severely that it was nothing to laugh about.
“As I understand it, the tragedy has only been hastened,” said the teasing Graham. “You designed the chicken for the butcher, didn’t you? And now let’s feed this unnatural mother before she gets hungry and eats up the other five.”
The appetite of the yellow hen was not the least impaired by the family disaster. She gobbled down her corn meal with a dispatch which argued indifference to the possibility that there might not be enough left for her offspring. Then while Peggy and Graham made ready a little grave for the victim of maternal clumsiness, the others flocked back to the house discussing the calamity. Reluctantly Ruth resumed her duties, and her sense of resentment grew rapidly, as she listened to the excited chatter of her companions. All this fuss about a dead chicken, and not a word of sympathy for her sufferings. Ruth was rapidly approaching the point of extreme unreasonableness.
A long walk was the first of the festivities scheduled for the eventful last day. The boys had discovered a view that they were very anxious to have the others see, and even Aunt Abigail, who was not a great success as a pedestrian, had decided to go along. Ruth was putting on her wide brimmed shade hat, when a wave of faintness swept over her, and for a minute everything turned black. Then she recovered herself, and saw a white face with unnaturally large eyes staring back at her from the mirror.
“I–I don’t believe I’ll go,” said Ruth in an uncertain voice, in which there was no suggestion of heroism.
“Go?” Amy was down on her hands and knees, looking for a pin in the cracks of the floor. “Of course you’ll go. Don’t be grumpy.”
Grumpy! And after she had endured so much to avoid casting a shadow over the spirits of the party. Ruth frowned on her, but in silence. It seemed to her that she had never before realized the amount of selfishness in the world. Nobody cared what she suffered. Her dearest friends, her own brother were prodigies of inconsiderateness. With an effort she kept back the burning tears of self pity, and tottered down the stairs, prepared to endure the martyrdom of a long walk under the July sun.