Write: The new home to which Betty was sent pleased her. She thought that she should soon forget her sorrows. The fowl-house was nice and clean.
Questions: 1. To whom was Betty sent? 2. What sort of woman was the farmer's wife? 3. When Betty stepped out of her hamper what did she begin to do? 4. What did she find? 5. What was the hen-house like?
7. TWELVE LITTLE CHICKS.
1. Her friends at the old home had all walked on dry land. But here she found many ducks and drakes, besides odd-looking fowls with feathers down their legs.
2. Spring came, and Betty paced the yard with twelve fine chickens behind her. All of them had five toes on each little foot, as their mother had when she was born. So they were all right.
3. Down the velvet back of each chick were stripes of dark brown, which was the proper pattern for their first short coats. After a time they would put off baby-clothes, and be dressed in pure white like their mother.
4. As her chicks slept under her wings, or chirped with their merry little voices, she forgot all else but her darlings. What did it matter having one claw too few, now that she had her dear babies?
5. Betty took care to keep her children neat, and to teach them good manners. "You may gobble up a worm, children, as fast as you like, when you find it, so that no one else may get it," said she.
6. "But don't let me see two of you having a fight, or both tugging at the same worm. You must not ruffle up your feathers at each other, or fight, though you may do so if you meet a rat."