At that moment came a rustling sound in the underbrush. "P'raps it's savages," thought Archie, and, half pleased, half frightened at the idea, he gave a loud whoop. Out flew a fat motherly hen, cackling and screaming. What she was doing there in the woods I cannot imagine. Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she had private business there which only hens can understand. Or it may be that she, too, had built a little house and hidden it away so that no one should know where it was.
Archie was enchanted. "A hen, a hen," he cried. "I'll catch her and keep her for my own. Then I'll have eggs, and I'll give 'em to Mamma, and I'll make custards. Custards is made of eggs. Loo—isa said so."
"Chicky, chicky, chicky," he warbled in a winning voice, waving his fingers as if he were sprinkling corn on the ground for the hen to eat. But the hen was not to be enticed in that manner, and, screaming louder than ever, ran into the bushes again. Then Archie began to run too. Twice he almost seized her brown wings, but she slipped through his hands. Had the hen been silent she would easily have escaped him, but she cackled as she flew, and that guided him along. His shoe came off, next the hammer flew out of his hand, but he did not stop for either. Running, plunging, diving, on he went, the frightened hen just before, till at last a root tripped him up and he fell forward on his face. The hen vanished into the thicket. Her voice died away in distance. By the time Archie had picked himself up there was not even the rustling of a leaf to show which way she had gone.
He rose from the ground disconsolate. His nose bled from the fall, and there was a bump on his forehead, which ached painfully. A strong desire to cry came over him. But, like a brave fellow, he would not give way to it, and sat down under a tree to rest and decide what was to be done next.
"I'll go back again to my house," was his decision. But where was the house? He ran this way, that way; the paths all looked alike. The house had vanished like the hen. Archie had not the least idea which way he ought to turn to find it.
One big tear did force its way to his eyes when this fact became evident. House and hen, it was hard to lose both at once. The hammer, too, was gone. Only the spade remained, and, armed with this, Archie, like a true hero, started to find a good place and build another house. Surely nowhere, save in the histories of the great Boston and Chicago fires, is record to be found of parallel pluck and determination!
House-building was not half so easy in this part of the wood where he then was, for the bushes were thick and stood closely together. Their branches hung so low, that, small as Archie was, he had to bend forward and walk almost double to avoid having his eyes scratched by them. At last, in the middle of a circle of junipers, he found a tolerably free space which he thought would do. The ground, however, was set thick with sharp uncomfortable stones, and the first thing needed was to get rid of them.
So for an hour, with fingers and spade, Archie dug and delved among the stones. It was hard work enough, but at last he cleared a place somewhat larger than his small body, which he carpeted with soft mosses brought from another part of the wood. This done, he lay down flat on his back, and looked dreamily up at the pretty green roof made by the juniper boughs overhead. "I dess I'll take a nappy now," he murmured, and in five minutes was sleeping as soundly as a dormouse. Two striped squirrels, which may or may not have been the same which he had seen in the early morning, came out on a bough not a yard from his head, chattered, winked, put their paws to their noses and made disrespectful remarks to each other about the motionless figure. Birds flew and sang, bees hummed, the wind went to and fro in the branches like the notes of a low song. But Archie heard none of these things. The hen herself might have come back, cackled her best, and flapped her wings in his very face without arousing him, so deep was his slumber.
Meantime at home, two miles away, there was great commotion over the disappearance of Master Archie. Marianne had lingered quite a long time at the back gate. The milkman was a widower, looking out for a wife, and Marianne, as she said, could skim cream with anybody; so it was only natural that they should have a great deal to say to each other, and that measuring the milk at that particular gate should be a slow business. This morning their talk was so interesting that twenty minutes at least went by before Marianne, with very rosy cheeks and very bright eyes, came back, pail in hand, along the garden walk. As she took up the broom to finish her sweeping, she heard a great commotion overhead, steps running about, voices exclaiming; but her mind was full of the milkman, and she paid no attention, till Louisa came flying downstairs, half-dressed, and crying,—
"Sake's alive, Marianne, where's Master Archie?"