rs. Lyd was the
last of the lot. Poor thing! She had been such a lovely wax blonde: but
now the wax had all melted off her cheeks, she was as bald as a squash,
one eye had been knocked out, and, worst of all, she had not a stitch
of clothes on. Scrubby had brought her to this plight; but, for all
that, Lyd loved the very ground Scrubby tumbled over; and so did all
the rest of them, for that matter, never caring how much she abused
them in her happy, loving way.

Very soon high fun was going on in that room, and it is a wonder the
neighbors did not come in to see what the uproar meant; but nobody
heard it.

Yes, Ned, the bird, heard it, took his head out from under his wing,
and laughed at the fun until he almost tumbled out of his cage. The
lively dog, Spot, heard it out in his shed, too, and whined at the door
until Jumping Jack contrived to undo the latch and let him in. The
little late chicken heard it also, hopped out of his snug basket, and
was soon enjoying himself as much as if they were all chickens and it
was a warm spring day.

Lucy heard it, too; but Scrubby had taken Lucy to bed with her, and had
her hugged up so tightly that the kind old baby couldn't get away, and
had to lie there and listen and wait.

They were having a good time in that room. The rocking-horse had been
hitched to the little wagon, and Jumping Jack was driver; Miss
Francaise had climbed into the wagon, and was sitting there as
gracefully as she could, trying to hold her head steady; she had the
pasteboard dog for a lap-dog, while Peg and Lyd sprawled on the
wagon-bottom, and Minx stood upon the horse's back like a circus-rider.

And so they went tearing around the room in fine style, Spot racing
with them and wagging his tail till it looked like a fan. Ned fairly
shouted in his cage, and the chicken jumped on a chair and tried his
best to crow.

After a while, Spot grabbed up a piece of paper from one corner, and
began to worry it. The fine Francaise saw that and tumbled out of the
wagon in a minute, as if she were only a very quick-tempered little
girl. She snatched the paper away from Spot and snapped out: "You
sha'n't spoil that! It's Scrubby's letter!"

The horse had stopped now, Jumping Jack jerked himself up to the
astonished dog, and said, very severely: "Spot, aint you ashamed to
worry anything that belongs to our Scrubby? I'll put you out if there's
any more of it."

"It's too bad, so it is," said Peg.

Lyd began to