“A robin in the overhanging boughs of an apple-tree whistled cheerily as Zip drew near. Instantly the boy seized a stone, and threw it at the red feathers. The bird uttered a shrill cry of alarm, but flew away unharmed, and presently was heard again far away in the orchard. Zip was rather glad of this, after all. He wasn’t a cruel boy, but whenever he saw a bird or a squirrel, something in him, he couldn’t tell what, made him throw stones at it.
“Now Zip, as I said, had just been to Sunday-school, and had been thinking almost all the way home of the lesson. It was the story of the very first Christian people, who started so bravely to be good and true, and who tried to do just as Christ of Nazareth had taught them and their fathers a few years before.
“‘What a beautiful world it would be,’ the teacher had said, at the close of school, ‘if everybody tried to do so now!’
“Zip was only twelve years old, and didn’t know much about the world any way, but he had seen some acts that were quite unlike those of the apostles so long ago. His father and mother were plain country people, working hard from morning till night, and giving no anxious thought to the morrow, but a great deal to to-day, which was pretty much the same thing, only they were one day behind, and somehow could never catch up. The hard-featured man at the counter of his country store, and the tired-looking woman in the kitchen, each spent their lives, it seemed to Zip, in getting dinner or clearing it away. So it happened that the boy was glad enough of his Sunday afternoon, when, after returning from school, he had three hours to himself before supper.
“As he neared home he saw the small cattle-door of the barn left invitingly open. He turned aside, picking his way among the brown pools and streamlets that dimpled and twinkled in the sunlight, and entered the great fragrant cave, lighted only by cracks between the uneven boards, and a knot-hole here and there far above his head. The oxen raised their broad foreheads, knocking their horns against the stanchions. Zip gave them each a little pat between their meek brown eyes, and scrambled up the ladder into the hay-mow.
“It was a delicious place for a quiet Sunday afternoon. He waded over to the very centre of the mow, dug a little hollow with his hands, and cuddled down into it. Over his head were the dark beams with their dusty webs and last year’s swallow’s nests; beneath him he could hear the cattle munching away at their hay and grain, and now and then putting down a heavy foot on the floor of their stalls. A dozen hens were stalking about, picking wisely at various bits of grass-seed, and clucking in soft tones. All around was the sweet scent of the hay.
“As Zip lay in his snug nest he thought drowsily of what the teacher had said about everybody being good. How comfortable and happy it would be! The more he thought about it the pleasanter it seemed. Just then there came a long, low note from one of the hens on the wide floor below. The sound had so many quirks and turns in it, that Zip half thought for a moment that it was some one speaking to him, and started up to answer. Then he remembered it was only a hen, and leaned back with a smile.
“Presently he heard the same hen clucking, or cackling, again, and so slowly and clearly did the notes come that he could have stated to a positive certainty that something had been said down there on the barn-floor, and that, too, about himself. He crept to the edge of the mow and looked over. There were the hens just as he had often seen them, only looking wiser than ever. Even while he looked the brown pullet gave a vigorous scratch or two, pecked at the dusty boards once or twice, shook her feathers, and said distinctly,
“‘If they only knew!’
“Zip stared. Then a deep, soft voice, hardly more than a long, long sigh, came from directly beneath him, ‘They would soon learn to be as quiet as we are.’