“Farmer?” asked Feather Flop anxiously.
“Yes, indeed, farmer!” declared the little girl, picking him up and tenderly smoothing him. “If it hadn’t been for you, I doubt if I’d have had a garden!”
“Oh, I’m the happiest rooster in the wide world!” sighed Feather Flop, “and if I weren’t just a plain farmer rooster, I’d turn into a fairy prince, dressed in blue satin trimmed with gold and diamonds, but as it is—I’m hungry!”
“Come!” laughed Mary Frances. “Come, eat,” she said. “I like you far better than any fairy prince, for you’re my own dear friend—my farmer, Feather Flop.”
And Feather Flop looked so proud you might have imagined him in tiny overalls and sun hat.
[CHAPTER LV]
Bob and Billy’s Vacation
THE boys had been at school several weeks, and Mary Frances and Eleanor were well started in their studies, when one golden-leafed day in October, each girl received a letter from her brother as they stopped at the post office on their way from school.