e may only get his toe off, or his little finger,
and come home, or he may escape everything. Some do. Even if he is
killed--every one has to die, and no one can die a better way; and
Harry is ready--good and ready! So why does she fret? I know she's had
trouble--lots of it--Lord, haven't we all? My three boys went--two
have been killed; but I am not complaining--I am still hoping the last
boy may come through safe. Anyway, we couldn't help it. It is not our
fault; we have to keep on doing what we can....

"I remember a hen I used to have when we lived on the farm, and she
had more sense than lots of people--she was a little no-breed hen, and
so small that nobody ever paid much attention to her. But she had a
big heart, and was the greatest mother of any hen I had, and stayed
with her chickens until they were as big as she was and refused to be
gathered under wings any longer. She never could see that they were
grown up. One time she adopted a whole family that belonged to a
stuck-up Plymouth Rock that deserted them when they weren't much more
than feathered. Biddy stepped right in and raised them, with thirteen
of her own. Hers were well grown--Biddy always got down to business
early in the spring, she was so forehanded. She raised the Plymouth
Rocks fine, too! She was a born stepmother. Well, she got shut out one
night, and froze her feet, and lost some good claws, too; but I knew
she'd manage some way, and of course I did not let her set, because
she could not scratch with these stumpy feet of hers. But she found a
job all right! She stole chickens from the other hens. I often
wondered what she promised them, but she got them someway, and only
took those that were big enough to scratch, for Biddy knew her
limitations. She was leading around twenty-two chickens of different
sizes that summer.

"You see she had personality--that hen: you couldn't keep her down;
she never went in when it rained, and she could cackle louder than any
hen on the ground; and above all, she took things as they came. I
always admired her. I liked the way she died, too. Of course I let her
live as long as she could--she wouldn't have been any good to eat,
anyway, for she was all brains, and I never could bear to make soup
out of a philosopher like what she was. Well, she was getting pretty
stiff--I could see that; and sometimes she had to try two or three
times before she could get on the roost. But this night she made it on
the first try, a