“Jeannie, what do you suppose has happened?”
“Something’s sprouted,” Jean guessed laughingly. Tommy spent most of his time watching to see if any of the seeds had started to sprout.
“No. It isn’t that. Gypsy’s got little chickens. She marched into the barnyard with ten of them, as proud as anything. And nobody knows where she hatched them at all.”
Jean had to go immediately to see the new brood. Gypsy had cuddled them around her in the barn on a pile of hay and steadfastly refused to be removed. If ever a hen looked nonchalant she did, quite as if she would have said, “I can do it just as well as any of these ridiculous nesters that you’re so proud of, and my chicks are twice as perfect as theirs.”
“They’re wonderful babies, Gypsy,” Jean told her. “Be careful of them now. Mothers have to behave themselves, you know. No more gallivanting off to the woods.”
“She probably will. I’m going to put them into a little coop tomorrow and her too.”
It only proved, as Kit remarked, what children would do for a flighty and light-minded person.
Jean changed into a dress and ran down into the kitchen to help get lunch and tell her experiences of the day, which proved so entertaining and comical that Mrs. Craig finally came out and asked if they were ever to have anything to eat.
“Dad’s tray is all ready, Mom,” Jean replied, sitting up on the kitchen stool beside the stove, “I’m just waiting for the biscuits to bake, and Kit’s fixing a beautiful jelly omelette. Mother, you never saw anything so funny as these precious inhabitants, but they’re all gold, just the same, and I like them. And we’re going to have a barbecue.”