s a different breed from the
others, and he's outgrown them, and the senseless old creature thinks he
doesn't belong to her. She's just got to be nice to him, that's all."

But Peggy's efforts at discipline were unavailing. The speckled chicken
surreptitiously introduced under the yellow hen's hovering wings,
enjoyed the briefest possible period of maternal protection. Before
Peggy could get back into the house, the yellow hen was chasing him all
around the woodshed, and Peggy found it necessary to make him
comfortable for the night in a basket set behind the stove.

And this was the little drop which made her cup overflow. The forlorn
peeping of the outcast chicken seemed to blend with poor Lucy's sobs.
Peggy wondered if it could be that the voice of earth's suffering was
like the hum of the insects on a summer night, so constant that one
might not hear it at all, but an overwhelming chorus if one listened.

"Peggy Raymond, do you think you're coming down with anything?" Amy
demanded crossly, at half-past nine o'clock that evening. "Because
you're about as much like yourself as chalk is like cheese."

Peggy stood up.

"No, I'm not coming _down with_ anything," she said lightly, "but
I'm going _up to_ something, and that's my bed. I believe I'm
sleepy."

Before she climbed the stairs, she went out into the kitchen to be sure
that the speckled chicken was comfortable. As she touched the basket he
answered with a soft, comfortable sound like the coo of a baby, or the
chirp of a sleepy little bird, the sound that speaks of warmth and
contentment. Peggy stood beside the basket thinking.

"There! I knew something was wrong." Amy had followed her friend out
into the kitchen. "You're crying over that chicken. Why, you silly Peg!"

But Amy had misinterpreted the moist eyes. That little contented sound
from the basket back of the stove had brought a message to Peggy. She
had made the chicken comfortable in spite of its unnatural mother. She
had rekindled ambition in Lucy's heart in spite of her thieving brother.
All at once Peggy understood that the compensation for insight is the
joy of helpfulness. It was not meant for any heart to bear the burden of
earth's grief, but only to lighten it as one can, and be glad.

And so, after all, Peggy went up to bed comforted.

CHAPTER XIII

A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE

Peggy had a bright idea. Any one familiar with the Peggy disposition
would have guessed as much from a num