ith miraculous swiftness. Nature's slow processes
were trying to the patience. Peggy watched Jerry out of sight, and then,
her face unusually thoughtful, made her way to the front porch which
presented an unusually populous appearance that morning. The day was
rather warm, and a forenoon of idleness had appealed to the household as
preferable to a more strenuous form of entertainment.

"Aren't they any better?" asked Elaine, noticing the gravity of her
friend's face, but misinterpreting it.

"Who? Oh, the chickens." Peggy roused herself. "I can't say that I see
any improvement. And if there's anything that looks more sickly than a
sick chicken, I don't know its name."

"Well, anyway, Freckles is perfectly healthy," Ruth said encouragingly.
"And it's all the more to your credit because you brought him up
yourself." Some time before, the speckled chicken had asserted his
individuality to such an extent that a name had seemed a necessity, and
after considerable canvassing of the matter, "Freckles" had received a
majority vote. Freckles had long ceased to impress the observer as a
pathetic object. He was an energetic, pin-feathery creature, noted
equally for his appetite and his pugnacity. Dorothy who had not
hesitated to bestride Farmer Cole's boar, and was absolutely fearless as
far as Hobo was concerned, retreated panic-stricken before Freckles'
advances. For owing to reasons not apparent, Freckles found an
irresistible temptation in Dorothy's slim, black-stockinged legs.

Peggy shooed away the persistent Freckles, who had given up his designs
upon the gravel walk at her approach, and was pecking frantically at her
shoe-buttons, evidently under the impression that they were good to eat.
"Oh, he's healthy enough," she replied. "It begins to look as if he'd be
all I'd have to show for my poultry raising experiment, and I had it all
planned out how I'd spend the money for the whole eighteen chickens."
Peggy joined in the laugh against herself before she added cheerily:
"Well, even if air-castles tumble down, it's fun to build them."

"And to build them over again," suggested Aunt Abigail with a smile.
"Like castles little children build out of blocks."

It was fortunate that Peggy was able to take so philosophic a view of
the situation, for, before night, two of the little sufferers had
succumbed to their malady, and the yellow fowl, who could not wholly
disclaim responsibility for the misfortunes of her family, was le