ttle girl
sought the biggest brother. "Oh, no wonder the mean thing crows," she
said to him, as she told her story.

The biggest brother conferred long and solemnly on the question. When it
was settled, the little girl came out of the sitting-room with a look of
hopeful determination upon her face and hunted up Sassy. The latter had
grown so bold since the Thanksgiving before that any one could pick her
up without running after her. So the little girl, in two winks, had her
under one arm and was on her way to the carnelian bluff.

It was a hot, sultry day in midsummer, and not a breath of wind was
blowing over the farm. The grain-fields were still. The blades of the
corn drooped limply. The creamy sap of the milkweed growing in the
timothy meadow was drying up in the stem. Below the bluff the herd
stood, belly deep, lashing about them with wet tails, and the pigs
wallowed among the wilting bulrushes in damp security.

Yet, with all its heat and quiet, the afternoon was destined to be a
stormy one. The swallows were flying low across the farm-yard; the
colts, pestered by busy flies, were moving restlessly about the wire
pen; the Maltese cat was trying her claws on a table leg in the kitchen;
and, behind the wind-break, a collie had given over a beef-bone and was
industriously eating grass. But all these signs, which should have
foretold to her what was coming, were unnoticed by the little girl as
she hurried along.

At the southern base of the bluff she halted and put Sassy on the ground
with her head pointing up the hill. Then, with apron held wide, she
began to shoo the hen gently toward the summit. For the biggest brother
had said very emphatically that the only way to make a chicken lay is to
drive her up a hill.

Sassy did not pay any attention to the apron, but shook her wattles
crossly, "k-r-r-red," and held her head so that one white ear lobe lay
questioningly uppermost.

"Now you go up," commanded the little girl; "go right straight up, or
I'll just _give_ it to you. _I'll_ make you lay, you lazy thing!"

Sassy tilted her head so that the opposite ear lobe showed, and lifted
one foot against her breast. Otherwise she did not indicate that she had
even heard her orders. Her disobedience angered the little girl.

"Shoo! shoo! shoo!" she cried; "do you think I'm going to carry you? No,
siree! You'll walk,--every step of it, too. _I'll_ teach you." She
seized Sassy by the tail and rudely shoved her forward.