clawing me?"

At that moment there was a noise out in the yard back of the farmhouse.
The crowing of roosters and the squawking of hens could be heard,
mingled with a woman's voice.

"That's my wife!" cried Mr. Jason, jumping up, but at that moment his
wife came into the room.

"I've caught it," she said coolly, though her face was flushed.

"Caught what?" they all cried.

"The circus lion," she answered. "I went out to the henhouse, and there
he was crouching down in a corner, and looking as if he intended to have
his choice of my fat pullets."

"What did you do?" asked Mr. Brown and Mr. Jason together.

"Well, I happened to have a broom stick in my hand so I hit him a smart
blow over the nose to teach him to let my hens alone, and then I drove
the chickens outside and locked the lion in the henhouse. He's there
now. You'd better send for the circus folks to take him away. I don't
want him around the place scaring the fowls."

"Didn't he scare you?" asked Mr. Brown.

"I never stopped to think whether he did or not," was the cool answer.
"I just whacked him over the nose and he whined and cuddled up in a
corner like a whipped dog."

"Oh, let's go out and look at the lion in the chicken coop!" cried
Bunny.

"No, indeed," said his father. "Wait until the circus men come and put
him in the cage."

A neighboring farmer had a telephone, and word was sent to one of the
circus men who had stayed at the village hotel, while his companion had
gone to the rocky glen with a crowd of men and boys to try to find the
lion there, after the alarm given by Mr. Jason.

The circus man, who had remained in the hotel, came with a light cage,
drawn by horses, and the lion was easily driven from the henhouse into
the cage and was soon safe behind locks and bars.

"Mrs. Jason caught the lion!" cried the crowd that gathered to watch
what happened.

"Did he bite you?" she was asked.

"Never a bite," she answered smiling.

"What! Poor old Tobyhanna bite?" cried one of the circus men. "Why, he
hasn't but two teeth in his head and we have to feed him on boiled meat.
He's no more dangerous than a tame dog, and when you hit him over the
nose with your broom, lady, you must have hurt his feelin's dreadful."

"Well, I didn't mean to be _rough_," said Mrs. Jason with a smile, "but
it's the first time I ever caught a lion."

"Yes, and you get the reward, too," added the circus man, as he paid the
farmer's wife.

Then he started