er wings, clucked angrily, and acted as if she would
peck my eyes out if I came nearer.

I saw that they were harmless creatures, and, remembering my adventure
with the snake, I stepped aside. Besides that, I knew by their smell
that they had been near Mr. Maxwell, so perhaps they were after him.

They understood quite well that I would not hurt them, and passed by
me. The rabbit went ahead again and the hen fell behind. It seemed to me
that the hen was sleepy, and didn't like to be out so late at night, and
was only following the rabbit because she thought it was her duty.

He was going along in a very queer fashion, putting his nose to the
ground, and rising up on his hind legs, and sniffing the air, first on
this side and then on the other, and his nose going, going all the time.

He smelled all around the house till he came to Mr. Maxwell's room at
the back. It opened on the veranda by a glass door, and the door stood
ajar. The rabbit squeezed himself in, and the hen stayed out. She
watched for a while, and when he didn't come back, she flew upon the
back of a chair that stood near the door, and put her head under her
wing.

I went back to my bed, for I knew they would do no harm. Early in the
morning, when I was walking around the house, I heard a great shouting
and laughing from Mr. Maxwell's room. He and Mr. Harry had just
discovered the hen and the rabbit; and Mr. Harry was calling his mother
to come and look at them. The rabbit had slept on the foot of the bed.

Mr. Harry was chaffing Mr. Maxwell very much, and was telling him that
any one who entertained him was in for a traveling menagerie. They had
a great deal of fun over it, and Mr. Maxwell said that he had had that
pretty, white hen as a pet for a long time in Boston. Once when she had
some little chickens, a frightened rabbit, that was being chased by
a dog, ran into the yard. In his terror he got right under the hen's
wings, and she sheltered him, and pecked at the dog's eyes, and kept
him off till help came. The rabbit belonged to a neighbor's boy, and
Mr. Maxwell bought it from him. From the day the hen protected him, she
became his friend, and followed him everywhere.

I did not wonder that the rabbit wanted to see his master. There was
something about that young man that made dumb animals just delight in
him. When Mrs. Wood mentioned this to him he said, "I don't know why
they should I don't do anything to fascinate them."

"You love them,"