DAYS NEAR THANKSGIVING m 
of these chickens. His father was working out- 
side, but had not seen the occurrence. Tim- 
othy’s son, quickly opening the window, called 
loudly to his father: “The crow has a chicken, 
the crow has a chicken !” 
Unfortunately, Timothy had his poor ear turned 
in the direction of his son’s voice and thought the 
words were : “The horse is a-ki eking, the horse is 
a-ki eking 1” 
So, instead of running to the house for his gun, 
he started as fast as he could go towards the barn, 
in order that his feeble old horse might be dis- 
ciplined. In the meantime, the crow and its prey 
passed out of sight. At first, it had flown rather 
slowly and stopped once to rest in a tree. Prob- 
ably it was unused to carrying such a large bird as 
the chicken. 
Timothy’s son is lame and could not himself run 
quickly after the crow. Since this happened, 
neither he nor his father has had any good words 
to say for crows, nor in fact has Little Joseph. I 
think myself the chicken came to a tragic end ; but, 
if it had stayed with Timothy’s son, it would soon 
have had its head chopped off, so the difference was 
not so great after all. 
Queenie Perth no longer talks about her garden 
or the butterflies. “There is nothing to say now 
about it,” she explains. And this is true, since, 
with the exception of a few sweet-williams, all her 
flowers were annuals, living for one season only. 
