ny, many
sticks, heaps of 'em. Then I'll hammer and make a house. Only--I
haven't got any nails," he added with an after-thought.

There were plenty of sticks to be had in that part of the wood; twigs
and branches from the dead tree, fragments of bark, odds and ends of dry
brush. Close by stood a white birch. The thin, paper-like covering hung
loose on its stem, like grey-white curls. Archie could pull off large
pieces, and he enjoyed this so much that he pulled till the birch trunk,
as far up as he could reach, was perfectly bare. Some of the boughs were
crooked. Archie tried to lay them straight with the others, but they
wouldn't fit in nicely, and stuck their stiff angles out in all
directions.

"Those are naughty sticks," said Archie, giving the crookedest a shove.
"They shan't go into my house at all."

The want of nails became serious as the heap of wood grew large and
Archie was ready to build. What was the use of a hammer without nails?
He tried various ways. At last he laid the longest boughs in a row
against the side of the fallen tree. This left a little place beneath
their slope into which it was possible to creep. Archie smiled with
satisfaction, and proceeded to thatch the sloping roof with moss and
bits of bark. Then he grubbed up the green cushion and transferred it
bodily to his house.

"This'll be my chair," he said to himself. "I dess I don't want any more
furnture except just a chair. Loo--isa, she said, 'so many things to
dust is a bodder.'"

At that moment came a rustling sound in the underbrush. "P'raps it's
savages," thought Archie, and, half pleased, half frightened at the
idea, he gave a loud whoop. Out flew a fat motherly hen, cackling and
screaming. What she was doing there in the woods I cannot imagine.
Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she had private business there
which only hens can understand. Or it may be that she, too, had built a
little house and hidden it away so that no one should know where it
was.

Archie was enchanted. "A hen, a hen," he cried. "I'll catch her and keep
her for my own. Then I'll have eggs, and I'll give 'em to Mamma, and
I'll make custards. Custards _is_ made of eggs. Loo--isa said so."

"Chicky, chicky, chicky," he warbled in a winning voice, waving his
fingers as if he were sprinkling corn on the ground for the hen to eat.
But the hen was not to be enticed in that manner, and, screaming louder
than ever, ran into the bushes again. Then Archie began