s bowed that way.

Suddenly the rustling about her made the little girl look up. The bright
sunshine had changed to threatening gloom, the sultry quiet was broken
by whispers of tempest and rain. She saw the nearing cloud-column, now
an hour-glass in form, and realized her awful danger. Calling to Sassy,
she got up on her knees with the thought of flight.

Sassy answered with little joyous cries. She was gratefully welcoming
the forerunning breeze of the cyclone by raising her wings, and was
walking sidewise down the hill.

The next moment, a torrent of water struck the little girl as she
attempted to get to her feet, and rolled Sassy farther away from the
pile. Then, with a horrid growl, the cyclone crossed the river, skipped
over the swaying wheat, and, alighting on the edge of the corn, dragged
its ravaging base across the field with a terrific whirling of stalks
and a rending and grinding that bespoke the very end of things. Its
center was midway between the bluff and the farm-house. And, as its
farther edge braided the cottonwoods in the wind-break and uprooted the
stunted apple-trees, its near edge came close to the stone-pile with a
mighty sucking breath.

The little girl, seeing that escape was impossible, for the rain was
beating her down, flung herself in the lee of the pile and clutched at
the grass. "Sassy!" she shouted again; "Sassy!" But the cyclone drowned
her cry.

With starting eyes she saw the swirling currents draw Sassy,
maelstromlike, in and in. The hen lost her feet, was next tossed like a
white ball hither and thither, and then sped out of sight into the
vortex of the storm's wild mingling of matter, taking with her all the
little girl's hopes of future revenue--the unlaid eggs and the unhatched
chicks. As she disappeared, she gave a final frightened, crowing cluck.
It was her swan song.

* * * * *

WHEN the tornado had swept on, leaving in its wake a wide path of bare
ground fringed with wreckage, the little girl hurried home to assure
herself that her mother and the big brothers had gotten into the
storm-cellar, and that the blue mare was unhurt, and to gaze into the
sitting-room mirror to see if her hair had turned white. Satisfied upon
all points, she changed her clothes and started eastward on horseback,
following the streaked road of the cyclone. As she traveled, she kept
steadfastly on the lookout, and jogged along until the prairie was
wrapped in nig