forty dollars."

Peggy turned and looked at Lucy Haines. Silently Lucy looked back at
her. And without a word on the part of either, it was plain that one had
spoken and the other answered.

CHAPTER XVII

A PLAIN TALK

There was trouble in the poultry yard. Whether over-indulgence in a
grasshopper diet was accountable, or the responsibility was to be laid
at the door of early morning rambles through damp grass, Peggy was not
sure, but the condition of the three chickens still under the charge of
the yellow hen was plainly alarming. The wretched little creatures
hardly had strength to peep, still less to follow their energetic mother
on the excursions she showed no intention of relinquishing, out of
regard to the health of her family. Peggy found it necessary again to
confine her to the small coop she had occupied previously, and the
yellow hen indicated her dissatisfaction with the cramped quarters.
While she thrust her long neck through the slats and scolded
clamorously, her family of three stood about in varying attitudes of
dejection, indifferent to the corn-meal mush Peggy spread lavishly
before them.

The neighborhood authorities, whom Peggy naturally consulted, pronounced
the chickens suffering from "pip" and prescribed weird remedies. Jerry
Morton was appealed to along with the rest, and surprised Peggy by
professing complete ignorance of the subject.

"I've heard my grandmother talk about the pip, but I don't know what
it's like. I don't know nothing about chickens anyway."

"That's queer," remarked Peggy musingly, "when you know so much about
birds."

"Oh, birds!" The boy's face lighted up. "Birds is different. They've got
their own way of doing things, and one kind ain't any more like another
than folks is. You ought to see a pair of old birds teaching a young one
to fly. If he hasn't got spunk enough to get out of the nest himself,
they'll push him over, and then they'll fly around him, and keep on
talking and talking and saying how easy it is, and show him how. And
then when he tries they praise him up, as if he was a perfect wonder,
and he begins to think he's pretty smart himself." Jerry chuckled, as if
recalling such a scene as he was so vividly describing, and Peggy
watched him thoughtfully but without speaking. She had learned long
before that Jerry was most likely to discuss the subjects nearest his
heart when stimulated by silent attention.

"Some people talk as if folks was the on