d body
into the hen-house. He walked over where a lonesome looking hen was
sitting patiently on a nest. He put out a cautious hand and the hen
promptly gave it a vicious peck.

"Billy," he called angrily, "you got to come in here and hold this old
chicken; she's 'bout the terriblest pecker they is."

Billy stuck his head in the little square hole. "Go at her from behind,"
he suggested; "put yo' hand under her easy like, an' don' let her know
what you's up to."

Jimmy tried to follow these instructions, but received another peck for
his pains. He promptly mutinied.

"If you want any eggs," he declared, scowling at the face framed in
the aperture, "you can come get 'em yourself. I done monkeyed with this
chicken all I'm going to."

So Billy climbed up and easily got his lean little body through the
opening. He dexterously caught the hen by the nape of the neck, as he
had seen Aunt Cindy do, while Jimmy reached for the eggs.

"If we ain't done lef' my cap outside on the groun'," said Billy. "What
we goin' to put the eggs in?"

"Well, that's just like you, Billy, you all time got to leave your cap
on the ground. I'll put 'em in my blouse till you get outside and then
I'll hand 'em to you. How many you going to take?"

"We might just as well git 'em all now," said Billy. "Aunt Cindy say
they's some kinder hens won't lay no chickens 't all if folks put they
hands in they nests an' this here hen look like to me she's one of them
kind, so the rester the egg'll jest be waste, any how, 'cause you done
put yo' han's in her nes', an' a dominicker ain't a-goin' to stan' no
projeckin' with her eggs. Hurry up."

Jimmy carefully distributed the eggs inside his blouse, and Billy once
more crawled through the hole and stood on the outside waiting, cap in
hand, to receive them.

But the patient hen had at last raised her voice in angry protest and
set up a furious cackling, which so frightened the little boy on the
inside that he was panic-stricken. He caught hold of a low roost pole,
swung himself up and, wholly unmindful of his blouse full of eggs,
pushed his lower limbs through the hole and stuck fast. A pair of
chubby, sturdy legs, down which were slowly trickling little yellow
rivulets, and half of a plump, round body were all that would go
through.

"Pull!" yelled the owner of the short fat legs. "I'm stuck and can't go
no furder. Pull me th'oo, Billy."

About this time the defrauded fowl flew from her nest and attem