“He would gnaw out of this shop,” said Phonny.
“Not any more easily than he would gnaw out of the box,” said Beechnut.
Phonny turned to his box and looked at the smooth surface of the pine which formed the interior. He perceived that Frink could gnaw through anywhere, easily, in an hour.
“I did not think of that,” said Phonny “I must line it with tin.”
He began to picture to his mind, the process of putting his arm into the box and nailing tin there, where there was no room to work a hammer, and sighed.
“Well,” said he, “I’ll let him have the whole shop, to-night, and now we will go out and try the ladder.”
The whole party accordingly went to the hen-house. Beechnut examined the small door that Stuyvesant had made, and the button of the large door, while Stuyvesant was planting the ladder. Phonny was eager to go up first; Stuyvesant followed him.
Phonny mounted upon the floor of the loft, and immediately afterward began to exclaim,
“Oo—oo—Stivy,—here is old Gipsy, on a nest, and I verily believe that she is setting; I could not think what had become of old Gipsy.”
Just at this time, Beechnut’s head appeared coming up the ladder. He called upon the boys to come back, away from the hen, while he went up to see. She was upon a nest there, squatted down very low, and with her wings spread wide as if trying to cover a great nest full of eggs.