Johnny writes me, that, when some of these little dogs saw him and his sister approaching, they sat down on their hind-legs, and began barking. Then they dropped into their holes backwards. As Johnny did not care to wake up any of the other lodgers, he and his sister went home, well content with their first sight of a prairie-dog.
Aunt Alice.
STRUT
Strut was the name of a hen that lived on Father Nunn's farm, nine miles from Norwalk, Ohio.
She was very vain; that is, she had a very good opinion of herself. She always would strut when walking. Indeed, it was hard for her to pick up grains of corn as other chickens did. I think she never saw her feet in her life: certainly she never looked where she stepped.
Worse than all this, when she saw any person in the yard, instead of dodging away, as a modest hen should, she would strut right up to such a person, and look saucily in his face, as though asking, "Who are you? Where are you going? What for?"
At last, however, Strut received a severe rebuke for her evil ways. Cousin William Bird, who is soon to be a doctor, was visiting at Father Nunn's. Having occasion to climb the ladder to the barn-loft, he saw Strut on the farther side. He knew that she would come straight to him; and he also knew that she would not look where she stepped. So he held still to see what would happen; for exactly between them was an opening in the floor for throwing down hay.