he string, and the speckled top-knot keeled over.
He ran up to it, very proud, at first, of his good shot, but frightened
enough when he found that the chicken only just kicked a little, and
then lay quite still.

Andy turned it over, and tried to stand it upon its legs, and thought
what he should tell his parents.

"I'll say a hawk flew down and killed it! But I shot at the hawk, and he
let it drop, just as he was flying away with it."

This was the story he made up, as he took poor top-knot and laid it down
by the well-curb.

He was still wishing to shoot something that was alive, and, seeing the
cat creeping along on the fence watching for a mouse, he concluded to
try his luck with her. So he drew up, aimed, and fired. Puss was so
intent on watching the mouse that she paid no attention at all to the
arrow, which struck the rail a little behind her, and glanced off
towards the house. Andy heard a sound like shivered glass, and, running
up, saw to his dismay that he had broken a window.

Now he had been told never to shoot his arrow towards the house; and how
to conceal the accident and avoid punishment he couldn't at first
imagine. The glass lay scattered on the pantry shelf, and the hole in
the pane was large enough to put his hand through.

"I'll say Joe Beals came and wanted my bow, and because I wouldn't let
him have it, he threw a stone at me, and broke the window."

And having made up this story, he searched for such a stone as Joe would
be apt to throw, and, having found one, placed it on the pantry floor,
to appear as if it had fallen there after passing through the glass.

These accidents made him dislike his bow, and he hung it up in the
wood-shed. Then he made a lasso of a string, and caught the cat by
throwing the noose over her head. But Puss did not like the sport as
well as he did, and gave him such a scratch that he was glad to let her
run off with the lasso. Then he thought he would plague the old sow by
getting one of her little pink-white pigs; but the instant he had caught
it up in his arms, it began to squeal; and the mother, hearing it, ran
after him with such a frightful noise, throwing up her great, savage
tusks at him, that he dropped it, and ran for his life. She stopped to
smell of Piggy, and see if it was hurt; and so he got away, though he
was terribly frightened.

Then Andy thought of his toy ship; and having stopped the holes in the
sink, and pumped it full of water, he called