baby asleep in the
soap-box the yellow hen was occupying, and then tiptoed off, with an air
of exaggerated caution.

"You see, she's very excited and nervous," Peggy explained, in a subdued
voice. "But Joe said she was hungry, and I guess she'll get off the eggs
long enough to eat. Sh! She's coming now!"

The yellow hen had indeed yielded to the temptation of Peggy's
hasty-pudding. She popped out of the box, gobbled a little of the corn
meal, took one or two hasty swallows of water, and then rushed back to
her maternal duties. The girls broke into irreverent giggles.

"I shouldn't call her a beauty," Ruth declared, as the yellow hen
settled down on her eggs, spreading out her feathers till she looked as
large as a small turkey.

"Her legs remind me of feather dusters," Amy remarked pertly.

"It looks to me as if she were trying to revive the fashion of
pantalets," suggested Priscilla.

Peggy was forced to join in the general laugh. "Her legs may not be much
to look at, girls," she admitted, "but those feathers are a sign of
Breed." And with this master-stroke she led the way back to the kitchen,
the dog, who had followed them into the woodshed, with every appearance
of being at home, stalking at her heels.

"Peggy," Priscilla inquired suspiciously, "have you fed that dog again
this morning?"

"He's a splendid watch-dog," replied Peggy, evading a direct answer. "He
wouldn't let Joe come near the house."

"I suppose that means you've decided to add a dog to your menagerie."

"I don't think I've been consulted about it," laughed Peggy. "He took
matters into his own hands,--or, I should say, teeth."

"Probably you've named him already."

"Of course. His name is Hobo," answered Peggy on the spur of the moment,
and Priscilla replied with dignity that he looked the part, and returned
to her cooling dish water.

"It really isn't safe picking up a strange dog that way," Claire
murmured, sympathetically, as she reached for a dish towel. "He might
turn on us at any minute." Priscilla whose criticism had been only half
serious, found the implication annoying, and when, under her stress of
feeling, she set a tumbler down hard, and cracked it, the experience did
not tend to relieve her sense of vexation.

"Girls," Ruth, who was sweeping the porch, put her head in the door,
"there's a boy here who wants to know if we'd like some fresh fish."

Various exclamations sounding up-stairs and down, indicated that the
propo