a great favorite with Master
Bolton Gray Cock, on account of her bright eyes, her finely shaded
feathers, and certain saucy dashing ways that she had, which seemed
greatly to take his fancy. But old Mrs. Scratchard, living in the
neighboring yard, assured all the neighborhood that Gray Cock was a fool
for thinking so much of that flighty young thing--that she had not the
smallest notion how to get on in life, and thought of nothing in the
world but her own pretty feathers. "Wait till she comes to have
chickens," said Mrs. Scratchard. "Then you will see. I have brought up
ten broods myself--as likely and respectable chickens as ever were a
blessing to society--and I think I ought to know a good hatcher and
brooder when I see her; and I know _that_ fine piece of trumpery, with
her white feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family
life. _She_ scratch for chickens! Bless me, she never did anything in
all her days but run round and eat the worms which somebody else
scratched up for her!"

When Master Bolton Gray heard this he crowed very loudly, like a cock of
spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious because she
had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn-out old
feather duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was filled
with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty. So young Mrs.
Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy neighbor, as she
sunned herself under the bushes on fine June afternoons.

Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have these hens by his
mamma on the condition that he would build their house himself, and take
all the care of it; and, to do Master Fred justice, he executed the job
in a small way quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered
with a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little
hen-house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for
his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes
with hay in them for nests, and he bought three or four little smooth
white china eggs to put in them, so that, when his hens _did_ lay, he
might carry off their eggs without their being missed. The hen-house
stood in a little grove that sloped down to a wide river, just where
there was a little cove which reached almost to the hen-house.

The situation inspired one of Master Fred's boy advisers with a new
scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise. "Hullo! I say, Fre