st.

The youngest brother, spurred by curiosity, was opening the package. His
mother stood beside him. As the brown paper fell away at the severing of
the white string, he sprang back with an exclamation of surprise. The
biggest brother put the little girl to one side, got up, and stepped
across to look down at the contents thus disclosed.

He was reminded of the rear half of the attic, where for years had been
gathering odds and ends. There was a bit of torn and faded
mosquito-netting, an old mouth-organ, a broken domino, a pair of
half-worn mittens, a ten-penny nail, a dog-eared copy of "Alice in
Wonderland," and a slate-pencil.

"My daughter!" said the little girl's mother, light breaking in upon the
situation; "my brave little daughter!" She turned to breathe a mother's
comfort.

But the little girl, her cap and coat resumed, was disappearing into the
chill shadows of the sitting-room.

XV

THE FATE OF A CROWING HEN

"SASSY" was all that her name implied. From the very beginning, when, as
a small white egg, innocent enough in appearance, she left the hand of
the little girl's mother and joined nine companions under a fat cochin,
it was with something of an impudent roll that she gained her place in
the nest. Three weeks later, after having been faithfully sat upon, and
as faithfully turned each day by the cochin's beak, she gave another
pert stir, very slight, and tapped a hole through her cracking shell.
The next morning she swaggered forth, a round, fluffy, cheeping morsel.

She was not Sassy yet, however. It was later, when she lost her yellow
down and grew a scant coat of white feathers, through which her skin
showed in pimpled, pinkish spots, that she displayed the characteristics
that christened her, and, by her precocity and brazenness, distinguished
herself from among her leghorn brothers and sisters.

At this period of her life, a pullet in both months and experience, she
should have conducted herself with becoming modesty. Instead, she
developed a habit of taking her meals, morning, noon, and night, from
the kitchen table, to which the little girl did not usually go until
long after the big brothers had finished and withdrawn. Sassy made her
entrance either by way of the hall or through the window nearest the
stove. Once inside, she hopped to a bench, and thence to the oil-cloth.
Her progress from one end of the board to the other was always attended
by serious damage to the butter, of w