th undiminished enthusiasm, and had
drunk his fill from a butter-plate, lifting his yellow bill to heaven
with every drink, and giving thanks, as all good chickens do, we used
to tuck him away in a basket. At first we buried him deep under a light
mass of cotton-wool, from the precise center of whose surface his head
would shine out in the morning like a star set in fleecy clouds; but
the chief of our advisory council warned us that the films might get
into his eyes and down his gullet with disastrous results, and
suggested instead the use of a retired table-scarf. Chicken in the
cloth, cloth in the basket, basket on the register, the family would
compose itself to listen to the "Life of Huxley," while the softest,
drowsiest nest song, "Tweety-tweet! Tweety-tweet!" from the depths of
the table-scarf accompanied the voice of the reader. The elfin
music-box would fall silent presently, but when bedtime came, and
Joy-of-Life, before taking the basket down cellar to hang it near the
furnace for the night, brought it to me that I might ask, no matter how
quietly, "All well, Mike?" a dreamy little note would instantly float
back, "Tweety-tweet! Sleeping sweet!"

We grew so fond of our pet as to dislike to see him deprived of the
natural companionship of chickenhood, and two other downy midgets--a
Penciled Brahmapootra, the gift of the market-man, and a Plymouth Rock,
from the Lady of Cedar Hill--were procured to bear him company. The
first we dubbed Patience, as the proper associate of a Microbe, but
this beautiful little fowl, whose golden face and delicately striped
body gave it a wild-bird look, developed such shillalah
characteristics, especially when Mike made off with the choice morsels,
that his name was speedily curtailed to Pat. The Plymouth Rock was
called Cluxley, in memory of our evening readings; but a meek,
illogical, not to say unscientific henny-penny she proved, who would
stand gazing on a dainty until one of her foster-brothers had snatched
it up and then industriously go and scratch for it in all the places
where it never could have been. Pat was a self-reliant, material-minded
younker, and we let him go his own lively way, with the minimum of
handling, but our brown Cluxley was of a clinging disposition and had
an embarrassing habit of imperiling her life by stealthy excursions up
loose sleeves. Mike did not welcome these birds of his own feather any
too cordially and held somewhat aloof from them to the e