ight
curls flying and her dark eyes flashing.

"You are a bad boy, and you must go away. You cut his head off and his
feet. I looked under the table. He hadn't any clothes on. Had drumsticks
on. Couldn't walk with drumsticks on. Bad boy!"

Here was a revelation that made Jack feel very small indeed. He came as
near blushing as was possible. The red blood actually showed through his
dark, grimy skin. Bertie was sorry for him. He hastened to open the gate
and bid him come in, a movement that astonished Flora. She had not
another word to say. When the boy that killed the calico-rooster was
invited to walk in at the gate, as if nothing had happened, she was
struck dumb.

"You were very good to look in upon us," said Bertie, kindly, trying to
make Jack comfortable. "Walk right along. You are in the nick of time;
we had only just started."

Jack was completely taken aback by Flora's reception, for he was sure
now that the fate of the calico was well known. There had been a
pleasant doubt in his mind before. He had always said to himself, "They
can't prove nothing." He hung his head in an awkward way, and blamed
himself for getting into a scrape.

"I thought I'd peek in and see how you were getting along," he answered,
sheepishly; "and now I am here, I may as well be a-lending a hand. Give
us yer knife."

"I had barely got his stockings off," said Bertie, passing the knife.
Jack felt the edge and then examined Bertie's work.

"Pooty well done to begin with, I call it."

"Do you, though?"

"For a green-horn, you know."

"Oh, yes, I know."

Jack began where Bertie left off, and he worked so skilfully that in a
few minutes legs and arms were free, and the warm jacket was turned and
pulled over the animal's head.

"He isn't quite so much of a beauty, come to peel him," said Jack.

"He is frightful!" declared Amy. "What a net-work of blue veins! They
make me shudder."

"He looks like a map, with rivers running all over him," said Charley.

"And how he shines. Ugh!"

Bertie held up the empty skin.

"He is as much beholden to dress as anybody that ever I saw, and he
wears the best of cloth too. Custom made, and no danger of a misfit.
None of your slop work about _that_ garment!"

"I hope you don't call that a garment," said Amy.

"It is a wardrobe in itself, hat and boots included. He did not carry a
'Saratoga' when he went journeying."

"Not much," said Charley.

"What is Jack doing now?"

He was detac