cked it very carefully every night. So it was doubly
perplexing when the hen disappeared. Dame Penny remembered distinctly
locking the coop-door; several circumstances had served to fix it on
her mind. She had started out without her overshoes, then had returned
for them because the snow was quite deep and she was liable to
rheumatism. Then Dame Louisa who lived next door had rapped on her
window, and she had run in there for a few moments with the hen-coop
key dangling on its blue ribbon from her wrist, and Dame Louisa had
remarked that she would lose that key if she were not more careful.
Then when she returned home across the yard a doubt had seized her,
and she had tried the coop-door to be sure that she had really
fastened it.

[Illustration: THE SNOW WAS QUITE DEEP.]

The next morning when she fitted the key into the padlock and threw
open the door, and no silver hen came clucking out, it was very
mysterious. Dame Louisa came running to the fence which divided her
yard from Dame Penny's, and stood leaning on it with her apron over
her head.

"Are you sure that hen was in the coop when you locked the door?" said
she.

"Of course she was in the coop," replied Dame Penny with dignity. "She
has never failed to go in there at sundown for all the twenty-five
years that I've had her."

Dame Penny carefully searched everywhere about the premises. When the
scholars assembled she called the school to order, and told them of
her terrible loss. All the scholars crooked their arms over their
faces and wept, for they were very fond of Dame Penny, and also of the
silver hen. Every one of them wore one of her silver tail-feathers
in the best bonnet, or hat, as the case might be. The silver hen had
dropped them about the yard, and Dame Penny had presented them from
time to time as rewards for good behavior.

After Dame Penny had told the school, she tried to proceed with the
usual exercises. But in vain. She whipped one little boy because he
said that four and three made seven, and she stood a little girl in
the corner because she spelled hen with one _n_.

Finally she dismissed the scholars, and gave them permission to search
for the silver hen. She offered the successful one the most beautiful
Christmas present he had ever seen. It was about three weeks before
Christmas.

The children all put on their things, and went home and told their
parents what they were going to do; then they started upon the search
for the si