228 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
faithful Chollor. He came to us a pool’, forlorn, hungry 
pup, and my parents at first would not let him come in 
the house, but as he lingered around and would not he 
driven off, they made up their mind to.let him stay. The 
dog and I were botli glad, for we were great friends 
already. My father keeps cows in a distant pasture in 
the summer, and lie goes ont with horse and wagon twice 
a day to milk them. I and my dog Chollor used to go 
also, and in only a few weeks he knew every head of cat¬ 
tle that belonged to us, as well as a man could have known 
them, and he would get them together for us when told 
to do so. If it happened that any strange cattle came 
among ours, lie would come and whine, and lookup into 
my father’s face as if he would say “ these don’t belong 
here, let me drive them out.” On that fearful Sunday 
night, the 8th day of October, 1871, when the great fire 
broke out, and destroyed all we owned in this world, we 
all had to go into the river to save our lives ; my parents 
and my three sisters, and my dog and me. The rush 
was so great that I got separated from my parents, and I 
had to go further up the river. I went out. on the logs 
which were in the river, and while crossing from one log 
to another, I fell into the river, and was quite unable to 
ewim. My dog saw the danger r was in, and he came 
and pulled me ashore. When Ihe heat was so great that 
we almost perished, he would go ont and splash water 
ovei me. We both got. saved, but when we had to go 
amongst strangers for shelter and food, a man shot the 
dog because he growled at him. That was poor pay for 
all Ohoilor’s kindness. 
Carl asa tflae Country. 
. Garl Anderson was a little city boy, but his grandfather 
lived on a farm, and in the summer time nothing pleased 
Carl so much as when mamma let him go and stay with 
grandpa in the country. The yard in front of the" farm¬ 
house was large, and shaded with great maple trees, and 
under one of the trees were the bee-hives, with the bees 
always going and coming to and from the clover-field 
close by. Carl had often tasted grandma’s beautiful 
honey, so he knew why the bees went and came about 
the clover-blossoms, and loved to watch them, though he 
was careful not to go too near. 
Back of the house were the barns and stables, with the 
milking-yard and the chicken-house, and still farther 
back, a large field which grandpa called “ the six-acre 
lot,” where there was a pond for the ducks. Carl often 
sat near the edge of the pond, and watched the hundreds 
of tadpoles frisking about, looking like little frying- 
pans—he thought, with only their very big heads, and 
their very small tails. Often and often he tried to catch 
them, but they were too slippery for him, until one day 
he scooped up with his hand a little fellow who wasn’t 
looking, but the tadpole was so cold, and wriggled so, that 
Carl was glad to put him back in the water, and let him 
scull himself off with bis tail. But of 
all the pleasant things at grandpa’s, 
Carl thought, Aunt Ellen was the 
best. She knew where the prettiest 
wild flowers grew in the woods, and 
could tell Carl where in the brook to 
find the nice round pink and white 
pebbles for jackstones; she knew the 
place of every nut-tree on the farm, 
and grandpa said she made the 
best bread in the country. Then 
Aunt Ellen was so kind to Carl, 
so ready to tell him stories, so sure 
to comfort him when he fell down 
and scraped his knees, that Carl 
declared he loved her “ most as well 
as mamma.” Aunt Ellen had charge 
of the poultry, and every afternoon 
she went out to gather the eggs, 
and Carl was sure to be on hand to 
help her hunt, and sometimes, when 
he was very careful, to hold the 
egg-basket. The hens had a nice row 
of boxes filled with hay, in which 
to lay their eggs, but, strange as it 
may seem, these foolish hens often 
preferred to leave their nice boxes 
and take themselves and their eggs 
to some out-of-the-way place where 
no one would think of a hen’s going. 
But there were two hens that never 
seemed to care about running away j 
from home. Every morning they 
went, soberly and properly, to the 
boxes in the chicken-house, and set¬ 
tled themselves to their work, which 
seemed to take all day to finish. 
The truth is—these old hens wanted 
to sit. Every afternoon, for nearly 
a week, Carl went to the chicken- 
house, hoping to find the hens gone, 
and to get a nice lot of eggs, but 
in vain, there they always sat, Bid¬ 
dy above, and Speckle below, look¬ 
ing very solemn, and refusing to be 
“shooed” away. At last, one day, 
while Aunt Ellen was hunting in the 
hay-mow for “ stolen nests,” Carl went into the chicken- 
house, determined to have those old hens off. He went 
straight to Speckle, seized her with both hands by the 
tail, and pulled her off the nest. Speckle was not used to 
such treatment, she struggled and flapped her wings, and 
squawked as loud as she could, until Carl was fairly fright¬ 
ened. ne dared not let her go, for fear she would fly up 
and peck him, and it was very hard to hold her while she 
struggled so; so Carl called loudly for Aunt Ellen, who 
was already coming to learn the cause of the disturbance. 
“ Let her go 1 ” she cried, as soon as she saw him, and 
Carl at last got courage to do so. Speckle did not wait 
to peck any one, but ran out of the door, cackling as loud 
as she could, and determined to tell all the other fowls 
how badly she had been treated. 
“ What was the matter with her, Aunt Ellen,” said 
Carl, “ did she have a fit ? ” 
“Only a fit of terror,” said his aunt, “ she was afraid 
of you, and hurt by being held by the tail! ” 
“ Well, I didn’t mean to hurt her, I should have thought 
she’d have known that! But chickens don’t know a 
thing ; the hens just lay eggs and cackle, and have chick¬ 
ens, and the roosters do nothing but scratch around and 
crow and fight. I’m glad I’m not a chicken,” said Carl, 
scornfully. 
“ They know more than you think,” said Aunt Ellen, 
sitting down on a big box, “ let me tell you about an 
old rooster we used to have. One of our hens, which had 
a brood of chickens, died, and the poor little things were 
loft orphans. We tried to make one of the other hens 
take care of them without success. But what the hen 
would not do, our old rooster did. He took the little 
chickens for his own, stopped crowing, and took to 
clucking the little things about, scratched for them, 
watched over ttiem, and when night came, sheltered 
them under h : s wings. They loved him dearly, and 
would run at his call, and he never left them until they 
were old enough to care for themselves. So you see 
roosters do know something beside crowing and scratch¬ 
ing and fighting. 
“He was real good,” said Carl, following his aunt into 
the house, “ I wish I’d seen him with the little chickens 
under his wing! ” 
Grandpa laughed a great deal when he heard of Carl’s 
adventure, and saw the tail-feather which poor Speckle 
had left in his hands. 
“Keep that feather where you can see it, my son,” 
said he. “It will remind you not to take hold of any¬ 
thing unless you are very sure you can manage it.” 
No„ —TDecatpitatioja IPaizisSe, sent 
by Frank, and very unlike the pictures you had last 
month, as in those you only had to see what the artist 
had put in the picture, and then tried to draw your atten¬ 
tion from it by making other things more distinct. In 
this picture master Frank says that ihe things he has in 
mind are only to be found by “ beheading or curtailing ” 
the objects which are there seen. You will recollect that 
in March we had a “ Prefix Puzzle,” in which the objects 
in the picture were to be made out by adding one of the 
letters of the alphabet to the name of each article. In this 
you must “ behead,” or take off the first letter; or “ cur¬ 
tail,” by taking away the last letter of the name of some¬ 
thing in the picture. As many new boys and girls look 
at these puzzles, we are obliged every now and then to 
describe them. Now suppose there were a train of cars 
in the picture, and you were told that you must find 
“something useful in dry weather.” By “ beheading” 
train, you would get rain. Now on this plan you must 
try to find in the picture here given, the following: 1. 
The whole. 2. Part of a boot. 3. Conclusion. 4. Evil. 
5. Noisy, fi. A grain. 7. To linger. S. The top. 9. A 
serpent. 10. A nickname. 11. To split. 12. A pointed 
weapon. Send answers to Aunt Sue. 
CARL AND SPECKLE. 
No. 452. —A DECAPITATION PUZZLE PICTUItE. BY FRANK. 
