rd about it to Aunt Deel. Don't ever speak o' that
miserable melon ag'in to anybody. You scoot around to the barn, an' I'll
be there in a minute and fix ye up."

He went by the road with the tea and I ran around to the lane and up to
the stable. Uncle Peabody met me there in a moment and brought a pail of
water and washed my face so that I felt and looked more respectable.

"If Aunt Deel asks ye about them scratches you just tell her that you
and Hen had a little disagreement," said my uncle.

She didn't ask me, probably because Uncle Peabody had explained in his
own way, and requested her to say nothing.

The worst was over for that day but the Baynes-Wills feud had begun. It
led to many a fight in the school yard and on the way home. We were so
evenly matched that our quarrel went on for a long time and gathered
intensity as it continued.

One day Uncle Peabody had given me an egg and, said that there was a
chicken in it.

"All ye have to do is to keep it warm an' the chicken will come to life,
and when the hen is off the nest some day it will see light through the
shell and peck its way out," he explained.

He marked my initials on the egg and put it under a hen and by and by a
little chicken came out of the shell. I held it in my palm--a quivering,
warm handful of yellow down. Its helplessness appealed to me and I fed
and watched it every day. Later my uncle told me that it was a hen chick
and would be laying eggs in four months. He added:

"It's the only thing it can do, an' if it's let alone it'll be sure to
do it. Follows a kind of a compass that leads to the nest every time."

This chicken grew into a little spotted hen. She became my sole
companion in many a lonely hour when Uncle Peabody had gone to the
village, or was working in wet ground, or on the hay rack, or the mowing
machine where I couldn't be with him. She was an amiable, confiding
little hen who put her trust in me and kept it unto the day of her
death, which came not until she had reached the full dignity of mature
henhood.

She was like many things on the farm--of great but unconsidered beauty.
No far-fetched pheasant was half so beautiful as she. I had always
treated her with respect, and she would let me come and sit beside her
while she rolled in the dust and permit me to stroke her head and
examine her wonderful dress of glossy mottled satin. She would spread
her glowing sleeves in the sunlight, and let me feel their downy lining
w