392 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



our dripping presence, singing its plaintive song of "clieep, 

 cheep, chee-eep," and winking at us as if it knew all about 

 it, and enjoyed the joke at our expense. 



The ''poor little chick" looked and acted so very like a 

 frog, and seemed to chuckle over our "taking in" with 

 such merry glee, that we just cast one reproachful glance 

 at it and then retraced our steps to the house in a very 

 dignified manner, a sadder, a wiser, and a very much wet- 

 ter individual than the one who had set out so bravely to 

 rescue an unhappy wanderer from an untimely death. 



We laughed then, and we often laugh now at the recol- 

 lection of that fruitless expedition ; yet several times since 

 then, w^e and others have been deceived (but never so to- 

 tally) by the peculiar, chicken-like cry of the little tree- 

 frog. 



Once — yes, we must tell it, for misery loves company — 

 our honored mater was victimized too. 



We were then hatching our chickens in an incubator — 

 the ' ' Perfect Hatcher " — and raising them in a brooder to 

 which a glass run was attached. There were nearly two 

 hundred lively chicks to be looked after and guarded, and 

 sometimes, after the run was closed for the night, a pitiful 

 cry outside would reveal the fact that one of the flock was 

 shut out. 



This was the case one evening about dusk; the chicks 

 were supposed to be all safely gone to bed beneath the 

 warm, cosy "mother" inside the brooder, and so the run 

 was closed in. Soon after, however, from outside, came 

 the pitiful, mournful cry of a chicken in distress. 



"Oh ! we have shut out one of tliose poor little things ! " 

 exclaimed the mater, and together we hastened to the res- 

 cue. We unhooked the wire netting, and the mater, after a 

 lively chase, finally picked up a little brown thing, that 

 kept jumping against the glass sides. ' * Poor little wretch !" 



