When the boys entered the shop door, the first thing for Phonny to do, was to look and see if his trap was safe. It was safe. It remained standing upon the horse-block where he had placed it.
“And now,” said Phonny, “the question is, where I am to find a box for a cage. I must go and look about.”
“And I must go and look at my hen-house,” said Stuyvesant.
Phonny proposed that Stuyvesant should go with him to find a box, and then help him make a cage, and after that, he would go, he said, and help Stuyvesant about the repairs of the hen-house.
“I must go and look at the hen-house first,” said Stuyvesant. “I can do that, while you are finding the box, and then I will help you.”
“Well,” said Phonny. “But—on the whole, I will go with you to look at it, and then you can go with me to find the box.”
So the boys walked along toward the hen-house together.
When they came to the place, they went in, and Stuyvesant proceeded to examine the premises very thoroughly. There were two doors of admission. One was a large one, for men and boys to go in at. The other was a very small one, a square hole in fact, rather than a door, and was intended for the hens.
This small opening had once been fitted with a sort of lid, which was attached by leather hinges on its upper edge to a wooden bar or cleat nailed to the side of the house, just over the square hole. This lid formed, of course, a sort of door, opening outward and upward. When up, it could be fastened in that position, by means of a wooden button. The button and the bar of wood remained in its place, but the door was gone.
“Where is the door?” asked Stuyvesant, after he had examined all this very carefully.