After this, the girls fitted the wire from post to post finding it a very difficult matter to lift and hold the twisty netting in place while it was being nailed flat to the posts. They had secured it to four posts on one side of the run and were trying to make it bend about the corner post so it could be nailed down and fitted across the end of the run-way too, when Mrs. James was seen coming back.
She stopped in dismay when she came near enough to see what was being done. The workers saw her expression and went over to her side to view the work from her vantage point.
“The wire runs uphill, girls. It fits, all right, at the first post, but from there on it gets higher and higher, from the ground, until it is a good fifteen inches above the ground at that corner post. Every chicken you have can walk under the gap, with its head erect. They wouldn’t have to stoop to crawl under,” laughed Mrs. James.
“Now how did that happen?” demanded Janet, ready to cry.
“We were most particular, Jimmy, about fitting it,” added Belle, frowning at the problem.
“Well, it can’t remain that way, you’ll agree with me,” commented Mrs. James.
“No, it’s all got to come down again,” sighed Frances.
“Here, Frans! You told us how to do it, and now you take this claw-hammer and work those nails out again. This time I’ll stand on the end of the wire and do the bossing,” said Belle.
Frances thought it was awfully funny, so she laughingly tried the claw-hammer to get out the nails. Several times the claw slipped and her hands were scratched, and once the hammer went right through the wire and she came, suddenly, with her face flat up against the wire. That was not so funny even though the other two girls laughed heartily at her.
When all the wire was laid flat upon the ground once more, it was found that the end that had been nailed to the first post was cut decidedly on the bias, and that accounted for the rest of the wire being fitted on a gradual incline as they ran it along the fence-line.