“We might, but I hate to think anyone else has a hold on my pets. If only I could find some way to own them all myself!” was Janet’s rejoinder.
“Well, let’s go to bed now, girls, as I am sleepy,” said Mrs. James, getting up from the side-porch and going indoors.
Just after every one was in bed and comfortably relaxed for sleep, a shrill cry from Janet caused them to jump up and run to her room to learn what was wrong.
“Oh, oh, oh! The poor things!” wailed she, sitting on the edge of the bed and wringing her hands, dramatically.
“What poor things! Are you dreaming, Jan?” asked Natalie.
“Who is it, Janet?” anxiously inquired Mrs. James while Rachel came scuffling into the room holding a candle to light her way. Her kinky hair was wound up in little cotton covers for the night, and she wore the old-fashioned short sack-gown, with a flannel petticoat underneath to keep the witches away.
Natalie had to giggle but Janet was too concerned to see what Rachel was wearing. She turned regretful eyes up towards Mrs. James as she confessed: “Those poor chickens! I forgot to feed them tonight, because Nat and I spent so much time watching the pigs burrow under the leaves and straw and then curl up to sleep!”
Mrs. James suddenly sat down upon a chair near the bed and laughed with relief. Janet looked at her in sad disapproval. “If it was your fortune that was fading away, you might not think it so funny! Now those hens won’t lay an egg to-morrow and another day will be wasted. Rachel said hens wouldn’t lay if they were not fed regularly.”
“Dat’s so, Mis James! An’ dem spechul hens ain’t had no ’tentchun, whatever, sence Janet brought ’em to live in her barnyard,” was Rachel’s emphatic rejoinder.
Natalie now giggled forth: “At least we can eat them if we find them dead on their roosts in the morning.”