ere, squatted down very low, and with
her wings spread wide as if trying to cover a great nest full of eggs.

"Yes," said Beechnut, "she is setting, I have no doubt; and as she has
been missing a long time, I presume the chickens are about coming
out."

"Hark!" said Beechnut.

The boys listened, and they heard a faint peeping sound under the hen.

Beechnut looked toward the boys and smiled.

Phonny was in an ecstacy of delight. Stuyvesant was much more quiet,
but he seemed equally pleased. Beechnut said that he thought that they
had better go away and leave the hen to herself, and that probably she
would come off the nest, with her brood, that evening or the next
morning.

"But stop," said Beechnut, as he was going down the ladder. "It is
important to ascertain whether they are eggs or chickens under the
hen. For if they are eggs they are one third your property, and if
they are chickens, they are all mine."

"However," he resumed, after a moment's pause, "I think we will call
them eggs to-day. I presume they were all eggs when we made the
bargain. To-morrow we will get them all down, and you, Phonny, may
make a pretty little coop for them in some sunny corner in the yard."

Phonny had by this time become so much interested in the poultry, that
he proposed to Stuyvesant to let him have half the care of them, and
offered to give Stuyvesant half of his squirrel in return. Stuyvesant
said that he did not care about the squirrel, but that he would give
him a share of the hen-house contract for half the shop.

Phonny gladly agreed to this, and so the boys determined that the
first thing for the next day should be, to put the shop and the tools
all in complete order, and the next, to make the prettiest hen-coop
they could contrive, in a corner of the yard. This they did, and
Beechnut got the hen and the chickens down and put them into it. The
brood was very large, there being twelve chickens in it, and they were
all very pretty chickens indeed.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ACCIDENT.

About a week after the occurrences related in the last chapter, Mrs.
Henry was sitting one morning at her window, at work. It was a large
and beautiful window, opening out upon a piazza.

The window came down nearly to the floor, so that when it was open one
could walk directly out. There was a sort of step, however, which it
was necessary to go over.

Mrs. Henry had a little table at the window, and she was busy at her
work. Ther