Bobby of Cloverfield Farm

by Helen Fuller Orton

One morning Mother said, "Here is the breakfast for the chickens, Bobby."

"I'll feed them right away," said Bobby.

And he meant to.

Taking the basin of meal in one hand and the basin of wheat in the other, he started toward the chicken coop.

When he was about half way there, he spied his new white rabbit poking her nose out between the slats of the rabbit-pen.

Bobby stopped. For a few moments he stood and watched her. Then he set the two basins down on the ground and went over to the rabbit-pen.

"I'll be back in a minute," he said to himself. "It won't hurt the chickens to wait a little while for their breakfast."

Bunny was so interesting with her long ears and her wiggly nose, that Bobby stayed fifteen minutes, watching her. By that time, he had forgotten all about Old Speckle and the chickens.

Next he went to a corner of the rail fence to see whether there were any more eggs in the robin's nest. He found four blue eggs.

Then to the Duck Pond he went to see whether the little boat he had left there the day before was still there. It was. He sailed it eleven times across the pond.