“I know it,” said Polly. “And so, after all, it was better that that black Shanghai ran away.”
“O Polly Pepper!” cried all the children but Phronsie.
“Yes,” said Polly stoutly; “I really think it was. Well, never mind, let us go on and hear the rest of it. Joel was the first one to tell us the chicken had gone. He rushed screaming in, ‘O Mamsie! Mamsie! the chicken isn’t there!’”
“Oh, dear me!” interrupted Joel; “I remember.”
“And after him came Davie flying in, and then I can’t tell you how we all acted in that kitchen.”
“You didn’t, Polly,” said Ben hastily; “all the rest of us did.”
“I know I was just as bad as any of us,” said Polly. “Well, anyway, then we all went out and hunted for the chicken, and”—
“And didn’t you ever find him?” demanded Percy.
“No, she said so before,” said Van; “she said they never saw him again, don’t you know?”
“No, we couldn’t find him,” said Polly to Percy, “though we hunted high and low,—in the woodshed, and the Provision Room, and all about the house, and down in the pine wood, oh! and over by Cherry Brook. Well, you can’t think how we searched for that long black chicken. Yes, and Ben ran down to the swamp where he had found it, when he was digging sweet-flag, to see if perhaps Mister Shanghai had run back there, and got stuck in the bog; but no, he wasn’t there, not a bit of him, so finally we all had to come home and tell Mamsie that we couldn’t find him. And it rained dreadfully all that afternoon; and there was the flour-bag standing up all ready in the pantry, oh, dear! and so we had to tell stories to keep the children from being too sorry and forlorn, and”—