THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 3 



loudly, like a cock of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. 

 Scratchard was envious, because she had lost all her own 

 tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn-out old feather- 

 duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was 

 filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and 

 pretty. So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at 

 her busy rubbishy neighbor, as she sunned herself under the 

 bushes on fine June afternoons. 



Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have 

 these hens by his mamma on the condition that he would build 

 their house himself, and take all the care of it ; and, to do 

 Master Fred justice, he executed the job in a small way quite 

 creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered with a 

 thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little hen- 

 house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole 

 for his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice 

 little boxes with hay in them for nests, and he bought three 

 or four little smooth white china eggs to put in them, so that, 

 when his hens did lay, he might carry off their eggs without 

 their being missed. This hen-house stood in a little grove 

 that sloped down to a wide river, just where there was a little 

 cove which reached almost to the hen-house. 



This situation inspired one of Master Fred's boy advisers 

 with a new scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise. 

 "Hullo! I say, Fred," said Tom Seymour, "you ought to raise 

 ducks, you Ve got a capital place for ducks there." 



