to run too.
Twice he almost seized her brown wings, but she slipped through his
hands. Had the hen been silent she would easily have escaped him, but
she cackled as she flew, and that guided him along. His shoe came off,
next the hammer flew out of his hand, but he did not stop for either.
Running, plunging, diving, on he went, the frightened hen just before,
till at last a root tripped him up and he fell forward on his face. The
hen vanished into the thicket. Her voice died away in distance. By the
time Archie had picked himself up there was not even the rustling of a
leaf to show which way she had gone.

He rose from the ground disconsolate. His nose bled from the fall, and
there was a bump on his forehead, which ached painfully. A strong desire
to cry came over him. But, like a brave fellow, he would not give way to
it, and sat down under a tree to rest and decide what was to be done
next.

"I'll go back again to my house," was his decision. But where _was_ the
house? He ran this way, that way; the paths all looked alike. The house
had vanished like the hen. Archie had not the least idea which way he
ought to turn to find it.

One big tear did force its way to his eyes when this fact became
evident. House and hen, it was hard to lose both at once. The hammer,
too, was gone. Only the spade remained, and, armed with this, Archie,
like a true hero, started to find a good place and build another house.
Surely nowhere, save in the histories of the great Boston and Chicago
fires, is record to be found of parallel pluck and determination!

House-building was not half so easy in this part of the wood where he
then was, for the bushes were thick and stood closely together. Their
branches hung so low, that, small as Archie was, he had to bend forward
and walk almost double to avoid having his eyes scratched by them. At
last, in the middle of a circle of junipers, he found a tolerably free
space which he thought would do. The ground, however, was set thick with
sharp uncomfortable stones, and the first thing needed was to get rid of
them.

So for an hour, with fingers and spade, Archie dug and delved among the
stones. It was hard work enough, but at last he cleared a place somewhat
larger than his small body, which he carpeted with soft mosses brought
from another part of the wood. This done, he lay down flat on his back,
and looked dreamily up at the pretty green roof made by the juniper
boughs overhead. "I dess I'll ta