CHAPTER IV
TENDERFOOT SCOUTS OF SOLOMON’S SEAL TROOP
Having given the setting hen enough feed to last a week, Janet went to the pig pen. She never leaned heavily on the fence, now, but she shoved the pan of food under the fence where one of the porkers had rooted a hole. After watching them fight and grunt madly for the mush, she laughingly turned and went to have one more look at the expectant mother-hen.
She was so perturbed at finding the eggs uncovered and the hen out in the yard gossiping with the other fowl, that she ran quickly to the house.
“Jimmy! Jimmy! Where are you?” she called excitedly.
“On the side-porch writing a letter for catalogues,” came the answer.
Janet ran out there and exclaimed: “Jimmy, that old setting-hen got up to have breakfast and she never went back to her business of hatching those eggs. What will happen, now?”
“Hens must eat and drink and exercise, you know, but they seldom remain off the eggs for any length of time. How long do you think she was away from the nest?”
“She was still out in the chicken-yard when I came back, just now. I should say she’s been off for twenty minutes, at least.”
“You had better go there and see if the eggs are chilled. Just barely touch them, but do not take them up in your hands,” advised Mrs. James.
“Another thing, Jimmy,” added Janet, sadly. “There wasn’t an egg in either of the other nests. I suppose the hens wouldn’t lay because I forgot their supper.”
Natalie was interested in this case of retribution.
“Will hens lay better the more you feed them, Jimmy?” asked she.
Mrs. James laughed. “I know they must be fed regularly for best results in egg-laying. They are much like other creatures—they need food at certain intervals. But I have heard that they will lay better if they do not have too large a range to run in.”
“Then I’ll build a smaller yard for them,” declared Janet, emphatically. “They must lay eggs or I’ll not be able to pay the corn and feed bills.”
“I’ll go with you, Jan, and figure out how big to have the new yard,” suggested Natalie.
Finding that the setting-hen still neglected her duty to the water-glass eggs, the two girls decided to use compulsion. They tried to lay hands on the wise old hen but she adroitly avoided arrest. Then ensued a chase that so frightened the other chickens that they screeched fearfully and fluttered about in every direction.
Finally the rooster found his way in at the small opening whence the old hen had come out, and immediately after him ran all the hens and young chicks. Janet had left the door of the coop open when Natalie and she went in to attend to the setting hen, and now the fowl all escaped that way into the barnyard.
“Oh, let them go! The old things!” snapped Natalie, as she counted the scratches and streaks of dirt on hands and dress.
“We’ll hurry and move this chicken-fence in until we think the yard is the right size,” suggested Janet, finding the old fence was shaky.
“No, don’t waste time on this old rickety fence, Janet. We’ll measure the ground and order chicken wire from Four Corners. That will make a durable fence and be easier to tack on to the posts than all this slat-affair,” advised Natalie.
Janet agreed with her so they took a ball of string to find out the length of wire they must order. They had quite forgotten the setting-hen until she came clucking nonchalantly up to the door of the coop.
“Oh, mercy! Nat, that hen has been off those eggs fully an hour, by this time,” cried Janet, anxiously watching the creature climb back and settle down upon the eggs.
An angry shout, sounding from the direction of the garden, made the girls look over that way. There was Rachel shaking her gingham apron wildly and Mrs. James waving her arms like a windmill, while both women were crying: “Shoo! Shoo! S-s-s-s-h-hoo!”
With dismay expressed upon her face, Natalie started to run to succor her precious vegetables; Janet followed closely in her tracks. The hens had had time enough to reach the tempting greens, however, and several shoots of lettuce were nipped off, while a row of young tender beet-tops was gone.
“Oh, oh! You miserable birds! I’ll wring your necks and enjoy eating you, after this!” screamed Natalie, as soon as she saw the damage done to her garden-truck.
“If the exasperating old beasts won’t lay enough eggs to pay back for this stealing, you shall have them to eat, and with pleasure, Nat!” declared Janet, angrily stoning the cackling hens.
Rachel stood wondering over the information she had just heard, then she said to Janet: “Ain’t dem hens done laid no eggs yet?”
“No they haven’t, Rachel. And my bookkeeping is all on the debit side. If it keeps on without any credits to jot down, I’ll never have a cent for candy, or anything!” complained Janet.
“Miss James must be right. Dem hens get too much freedom. Now we’ll lock ’em up in a coop and see what we shall see!”
So the four amateurs drove the fowl by devious ways, back to the chicken-yard, and Rachel closed their exit to the run by sliding a board in front of the opening.
“Let ’em sit down and think about it, honey, an’ mebbe they’ll lay some eggs.”
On the way back to the house Janet said: “How much are fresh eggs, Jimmy?”
“I really do not remember, but I’ll look at Tompkins’ bill when we reach the house,” replied Mrs. James.
“Eggs fresh from the nest are worth more than store-eggs, aren’t they?” continued Janet.
“Oh, yes, if they are guaranteed strictly fresh eggs.”
“Well, I won’t charge a cent more than the store does, because I’m using the barn and other things, you know,” said Janet.
“Other things mean lettuce and beet-tops, I s’pose,” laughed Natalie.
That day two letters went from Four Corners post office to addresses in New York, requesting that catalogues be mailed at once. The one of garden seeds was to be sent to Natalie Averill, and the one about fowl, pigs, and other stock was to be sent to Janet Wardell.
When Rachel heard that Natalie was planning to buy more seeds and plant them in an additional garden which she wished to have ploughed up, she said sarcastically:
“Honey, you’se is too easy in believein’ all dat talk in dem cat-logs. Nobuddy ever saw a cabbige grown as big as a house, ner did any beets ever raise up higher’n a man’s head. If wegetables growed like dem cat-logs say dey do, farmers’d have to harwest garden truck wid timber derricks.” The loud haw-haw that ended this comment made the others join in the laugh.
“I usta say dem comic pages in our Sundy papers was the bigges’ lies I ever saw, cus they egssaderate so bad, but dese farmin’ cat-logs kin beat comic papers all holler.” Rachel turned back to her kitchen work after unburdening her soul of the way seed-dealers misled the public.
Solomon’s Seal Scouts called at the house that afternoon, and the hostesses as well as the guests had a good time. The object of the visit was to invite the two girls at the house to attend a council meeting at camp the next day.
“Oh I hope the other girls will be here in time to go! We’re expecting them any time, now, you know,” exclaimed Natalie.
“We can have the council in the afternoon instead of in the morning, if you think they may arrive in time to attend,” said Miss Mason.
“Oh, yes! That will give them the whole morning to get here. I’m sure they’ll be crazy to visit the camp and see everything,” returned Natalie, eagerly.
“Say!” now Janet said impressively. Every one looked at her and waited for some surprise to be forthcoming. “When Ames drives past to the Corners for the evening’s mail, we’ll send word to the three village girls to be sure and come to the house to-morrow afternoon to go with us to the council!”
As is told at length in the book preceding this one, how the village scouts hailed the invitation to attend council, and how the three city girls arrived in time to not only receive a warm welcome at Green Hill Farm, but also to visit the woodland camp the same afternoon, we will not repeat the narrative here.
But one thing the girls of Patrol Number Two decided to do after they had witnessed the scouts of Patrol Number One go through their “setting up exercises,” demonstrate for the benefit of the visitors how they could make wildwood beds, cook without metal pots or pans, make fire with two sticks, and read the secret signs of the woods in stones, twigs, grass and trees, and that was that no time was to be lost if the new scouts wished to catch up with their more experienced scout-sisters.
Rachel had had ample time that afternoon to prepare a tempting supper for the village girls, and when Mrs. James found the table had been set out on the side-porch she smiled with appreciation. During the supper the enthusiastic scouts talked of nothing else but the valuable knowledge Patrol Number One had acquired.
“It means, girls, that we each must devote plenty of our spare time to the studying of our handbook, ‘Scouting for Girls,’ for there we shall find just what Miss Mason’s scouts found,” said Mrs. James.
CHAPTER V
THE POULTRY GO ON STRIKE
The five girls of Green Hill walked along the country road a ways with the girls from the village, and then returned to the farm. As they turned in at the gate opening to the side-path leading to the porch, they distinctly heard the pigs squealing as if they were being tortured. They found Rachel in a piazza rocker, swaying back and forth furiously while she strained her eyes in the semi-darkness for a sight of the delinquent stock-scout. The moment she heard the group of girls as they approached the house, she shouted angrily:
“Is dat Janet wid you-all?”
Being assured that Janet was one of the party, Rachel continued: “How kin you go off sky-larkin’ likes-how-you-do, Janet, aknowin’ dem pigs is starvin’? I tells you it is such cruelty to anermals as I never seed!”
“I’m awfully sorry, Rachel, but I had intended going to feed them when Jimmy said she thought it would please our visitors if we accompanied them a short distance along the road,” said Janet, apologetically.
Rachel dared not criticise Mrs. James’s motives or advise, so she jumped up from the rocker and snapped shortly: “Come and fetch dis mush out to dem at onct!”
“I wish one of you girls would come with me and hold the light,” ventured Janet, looking around at the faces in the semi-darkness.
“I’ll go with you, if you like, Jan,” offered Norma when no one else seemed over-anxious to take advantage of the invitation.
As Janet went to the kitchen to get the pan of corn-meal, Rachel added shortly: “Feed dem good ef you expecks us to git any sleep tonight!”
The girls sitting on the steps of the porch knew to a certainty the moment the pigs got their supper, for the tumult ceased suddenly. It was silent evidence that they were busy with the tardy supper.
Early in the morning, Rachel roused the household by shouting wildly: “Dem fowl’s got out and are in Natalie’s wegetables! Da’s whad comes f’om not feedin’ ’em supper afore bedtime!”
So Janet wearily ran out and raced about, first shooing away one hungry hen and then another, but finally calling on all her friends to help round them up and drive them back to the coop.
“I never knew anything to be more misappropriately named—Plymouth Rocks. The way those horny birds can skip around beats everything!” declared Janet, as she collapsed on the kitchen steps and wiped her streaming face.
“You’ve just got to keep them locked up until that new wire fence is finished, Janet,” commanded Natalie, angrily. “I’m not running a truck-farm for your stock to eat up.”
“Poor Nat! She has done nothing since the barnyard pets came, but replant vegetables twice a day,” laughed Belle.
After breakfast Janet said she would go to Four Corners and bring back the wire so that no time need be lost in immediately starting the fence.
“I’ll go with you, Jan, and help carry it back,” offered Belle.
“So’ll I, Janet,” added Frances.
Norma had too much to do in planting flowers, to think of accompanying her friends, and Natalie was too angry to offer to assist in any way in curbing the chickens’ escapades. So the three girls started for the store, leaving the poultry locked securely in the hen-house until such times as the runway was safely inclosed.
But they had not been gone very long, before Frances’s father and mother drove up in the automobile. It was Norma who suggested that Mr. Lowden play the Good Samaratin and go for the girls, to help them bring back the roll of wire-netting. So the girls and their wire were soon back again at Green Hill, as I told you fully, in the first book.
Then the main object of the Lowdens’ visit was explained, and the rejoicing of the girls was vociferous and deafening. When high spirits had been calmed somewhat by Mr. Lowden’s warnings he left the car for them to use that summer.
Frances said: “I think it is a strange coincidence that only last night I should write Daddy a letter and asked him this very great favor. All the time he and Mother were planning it.”
After the Lowdens had gone, Janet said she must begin work on the chicken-fence. Mrs. James offered to go with her and help, and Belle said she might as well go, too. Frances had driven her parents to the station, so she was not there to be drafted into service for Janet.
Janet unrolled the entire length of wire upon the ground and then stood studying it, as if for inspiration of how to handle it. Mrs. James watched her, and finally remarked:
“Why did you get it so wide, Janet? It’s five feet, at least, and you really do not need it any wider than three feet.”
“I was afraid the chickens would fly over if it was only three feet high,” explained Janet.
“Well you’ve got it now, so let’s get busy and put it up,” was Belle’s sensible advice.
“You go over to the other end of the wire, Belle, and stand on it to keep it from flying back as it does every time I move it,” suggested Janet, because the netting rolled itself up just when it was not expected to.
Mrs. James supplied herself with a mouthful of nails, and a few extra ones in her hand that held the hammer, then went to the first post in the row. She turned to tell Janet what to do but the nails in her mouth kept her from being understood so she had to remove them before she could speak intelligibly.
“I said for you to drag the wire over to me so I could nail one end to this post,” she repeated.
Janet did as she was told, but Belle had stepped from the other end of the wire to get the box so that Mrs. James might put the nails back in the box instead of back in her mouth. Consequently, the moment Janet began to lift the end of the wire the rest of it rebounded like a live thing. It coiled so unexpectedly and suddenly that the opposite end flew up, the ragged ends of the wire scratching Janet’s face and then catching in her fluffy hair.
“Ouch! Someone come and get this out of my hair, please!” cried the girl, tears in her eyes.
“Hold perfectly still, for a moment!” called Belle, running over to her assistance.
“Ooh—oo—uch! That hurts, Belle!” cried Janet, as the wires tugged at her hair unmercifully when Belle tried to untangle them. Then she had to call upon Mrs. James to help.
Frances had returned and, from Rachel, heard that the three had gone to the barn to build a chicken run, so she joined them there. She was just in time to hear Janet wail pitifully, and see the free end of the wire twist and writhe. This, of course, made the other end pull the harder on Janet’s hair.
“Wait! I’ll stand on this end so it can’t move. Then you can work better,” called Frances, jumping upon the wire as she spoke.
When the hair was freed at last from the hold of the wire ends, Mrs. James advised Frances to remain standing where she was to hold down the netting where it belonged.
“I’ll hold it with my hands and when you want to drag it over to the post, just call to me and I will crawl over with it, while holding it to keep it from jumping again,” said Frances.
As this was considered a very clever plan, it was approved and Mrs. James again took hold of the wire to nail it fast to a post.
“There now, Janet, while Belle holds it right in this position, you can nail it down all along the edge. Drive the nails about six inches apart, from the top of the post to the bottom,” said Mrs. James, handing the tools to Janet.
“Where are you going?” wondered the stock-farmer.
“I’m going back to the house to get a large pair of shears. We will need them to cut off the ragged ends of wire when we reach the side of the chicken-house.”
When Mrs. James had gone, Janet said: “Let’s see if we can have all the wire up before she gets back. It looks awfully easy to nail.”
They were so engrossed in nailing the wire, beginning at the top of the post and fastening it down the outside of the post, that neither of them realized the mistake they were making. Having nailed it securely for halfway the length of the post, Janet found the netting resist her efforts to fit in closely. She stood back to seek an explanation for this and cried, “Oh!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Belle, seeing her angry face.
“I never thought to measure the old post. Neither did Jimmy. Our wire is five feet wide and that post can’t be more than three and a half feet high. Now just look at that wire!”
They looked, but that did no good at this late moment. The extra one and a half feet of wire overlapped on the ground and was of no use there. It kept the wire from fitting snugly to the post, that was all.
“We’ve got to pull the nails out again, Janet, and begin to nail the wire down to the post, starting from the bottom up,” suggested Belle, eyeing the problem judiciously.
“And I hit those nails so hard—just to make them stay put!” sighed Janet.
“Don’t let’s waste words over what was done wrong, but let’s find a way to get the nails out again,” advised Frances, wisely.
“What can I use to pull them with?” asked Belle.
“That’s a claw-hammer. Use the claw on the other end of the handle,” said Janet.
So Belle managed to worm a way under each nail and get the claw underneath so it gripped the head of the nail, and then she bent the handle backward until the nail came out. After many mishaps, all the nails were out but they were so misshapen that they had to be flung away as useless. Then the two girls fitted the wire at the bottom of the post close to the ground, and began to nail down the wire, working upwards to the top of the post.
“It looks queer, sticking a foot and a half above the post, doesn’t it?” said Belle.
“I don’t care about looks. It is on right, this time, and that is the principle thing,” retorted Janet.
“Maybe the wire will prove to be so resistant that it will stand up above the posts, all right, when we get it all fastened to the places,” suggested Frances.
After this, the girls fitted the wire from post to post finding it a very difficult matter to lift and hold the twisty netting in place while it was being nailed flat to the posts. They had secured it to four posts on one side of the run and were trying to make it bend about the corner post so it could be nailed down and fitted across the end of the run-way too, when Mrs. James was seen coming back.
She stopped in dismay when she came near enough to see what was being done. The workers saw her expression and went over to her side to view the work from her vantage point.
“The wire runs uphill, girls. It fits, all right, at the first post, but from there on it gets higher and higher, from the ground, until it is a good fifteen inches above the ground at that corner post. Every chicken you have can walk under the gap, with its head erect. They wouldn’t have to stoop to crawl under,” laughed Mrs. James.
“Now how did that happen?” demanded Janet, ready to cry.
“We were most particular, Jimmy, about fitting it,” added Belle, frowning at the problem.
“Well, it can’t remain that way, you’ll agree with me,” commented Mrs. James.
“No, it’s all got to come down again,” sighed Frances.
“Here, Frans! You told us how to do it, and now you take this claw-hammer and work those nails out again. This time I’ll stand on the end of the wire and do the bossing,” said Belle.
Frances thought it was awfully funny, so she laughingly tried the claw-hammer to get out the nails. Several times the claw slipped and her hands were scratched, and once the hammer went right through the wire and she came, suddenly, with her face flat up against the wire. That was not so funny even though the other two girls laughed heartily at her.
When all the wire was laid flat upon the ground once more, it was found that the end that had been nailed to the first post was cut decidedly on the bias, and that accounted for the rest of the wire being fitted on a gradual incline as they ran it along the fence-line.
Before they could help Mrs. James cut the bias end to become a square end, Rachel came down the lane in order to see the finish of the fencing job.
“Well sakes! Ain’t you even begun yit?” was her comment.
“Certainly! We began twice, and this will be the third time,” retorted Janet.
“Whad’s the matter? Yoh ain’t got nuttin’ to show fer the work,” was Rachel’s reply.
“That’s because we are figuring on posts. The wire is five feet wide and the posts only three and a half. Perhaps we will have to get Ames to set up new posts, after all,” explained Janet, but she would not say a word to Rachel about the poor judgment she and her helpers had shown in running the fence skyward.
“I kin fix dat trouble in no time, honey,” declared Rachel, taking a look at the posts and then going to the barn.
When she reappeared she was carrying an armful of thick slats which she had found in the harness-room on the floor. She joined the waiting carpenters and threw the load upon the ground.
“I don’no what dese is foh, but dey is jus’ what you wants fer to lift dem postes up higher. Now give me dat hammeh.”
Rachel’s powerful arms soon had the slats nailed securely to the top of the posts so that they were extended two feet higher than they were before. The extensions were quite firm, too, so the girls again started to attach the wire to the first post.
“Say! You ain’t goin’ to bother wid all that wire while you air tackin’ on one piece, is you?” demanded Rachel.
“You don’t expect us to cut it in small lengths, do you?” asked Janet.
“Sure not, but do it dis way. Why use a hull length of wire at one time when you kin only work on one piece at a time? Now you rolls it up like dis”—Rachel demonstrated her words—“and stan’s it propeh like agin a post.”
Rachel stood the roll of wire upright against the post and nailed the end close to the post. Then she began unrolling the wire along the ground, while it was still in its upright position, but she stopped short, about midway between the two posts.
“Laws-a-massy-me! You gals ain’t got no grain of sense! Does yoh expeck dem fowl to sit in dat runway and not dig a way out unner dis wire? Dey’ll do dat fust chanst!”
“Is there anything we ought to do?” queried Janet, wishing all poultry in Timbuctoo.
“Suah! Run to the heap of ole lumbeh back ob dat barn and fetch me half a dozen bo’ads. All of you gals go foh ’em.”
In a short time the girls came back, each dragging a board under their arms. These were examined by Rachel and approved of. Then she took the first one which was about ten inches wide and nailed it inside the posts, so that it ran along the ground much like a base-molding is placed in a room where floor and side-wall meet.
“Now, you see, we kin nail dat wire fas’ to dis bo’ard and no hen kin scratch a way out t’roo a plank like dis is.”
Rachel remained to help them with the tiresome task, and when it was completed, it looked pretty good to the builders.
“I never dreamed that a little thing like a strip of wire was so hard to manage while turning it into a fence,” sighed Janet.
“It’s like mos’ t’ings, Janet—easy when you knows how to do ’em,” chuckled Rachel. “Now shove dat box away f’om the do’h of the coop so dem fowl kin run out in the mawnin’.”
“Why not tonight?” asked Belle.
“Oh, they’ve gone to roost before this,” said Janet. “They have been roosting all day, more or less, because they were in a dark house.”
Mrs. James picked up the hammer, and Rachel took the box of nails, and the two went back to the house, followed slowly by Belle and Frances who were talking over the recent carpenter work. Janet begged Norma to help her feed the pigs that night so she could finish before darkness fell.
“I won’t take the time to go to the kitchen and cook them a pot of mush tonight,” said Janet, as she led the way to the pig-pen. “But I’ll give them an extra measure of shorts and corn, for this once.”
The grain had been delivered the day before but Janet had not given the pigs more than a taste of it. Tonight, however, she supplied them liberally with corn and other grain until they actually ate slowly towards the last.
At supper, that night, which was very late because of the carpenter work, Norma spoke of the dry sandy quality of the flower-beds. “Mrs. Tompkins told me to examine the soil and if it was too dry to be sure and mix a good rich compost with the dry and lumpy dirt.”
“If you find the soil is too sandy, Norma, what did you plan to do about securing the compost?” asked Mrs. James.
“I was wondering if Natalie had any left from the cart-load Farmer Ames delivered here for the gardens,” replied Norma.
“No, we used every bit we had for the small vegetables,” explained Mrs. James. “But Natalie could use some more, to the best advantage, on the corn-field and the new garden she proposes to have Ames plough. So you two girls might share the costs for a load from Ames’ farm.”
“Why doesn’t Norma use leaf-mold, Jimmy? You said yourself that there was nothing like it. She can hire all the scouts to dig and carry it in baskets from the woods,” suggested Natalie.
“Mrs. Tompkins said that a good barnyard compost well mixed with the dry soil, was best of all manures for the flowers. But it must be thoroughly mixed. Then, she said, a fine leaf-mold was excellent for top-dressing. So I think I will listen to Mrs. Tompkins who has such wonderful results with her plants,” replied Norma.
“Yes, Norma is quite right to abide by the rule Mrs. Tompkins uses. No one in or near Four Corners has such flowers,” said Mrs. James.
“Well, then, Norma and I can order a load from Ames when we see him again,” said Natalie.
“We’ll see him drive past on his way to the store,” was Janet’s suggestion.
“If he doesn’t go past, I will leave an order at Four Corners for him to deliver the compost as soon as possible, shall I?” asked Frances.
“Yes, do, Frans, please!” exclaimed both girls in one voice.
“Write it on a card and then Tompkins can put it in his letter-box,” suggested Mrs. James.
CHAPTER VI
JANET RECEIVES ENCOURAGEMENT
The girls were aroused from sweet slumbers early the next morning by Rachel’s shrill calls. Each girl instantly fancied that some dire accident must have happened to her especial line of work, so they all ran to the platform of the stairway to look from the back windows where they could plainly hear Rachel’s voice.
What they saw was not an alarming cause for bankrupting their investments, but a ludicrous game that the fat mammy seemed to be playing with three little pigs.
Because Rachel was fat, she could not jump and turn as lithely as the lean little pigs. And having three tantalizing fugitives to chase and try to catch kept her on the “hop, skip and jump” exercise in a manner that would have made the girl scouts of Solomon’s Seal Camp green with envy.
She would all but catch one of the porkers when it would slip from under her out-spread, down-swooping hands. Inevitably such a dodge would precipitate Rachel upon her hands and knees. And the piggy would stand at a different point of the compass and look calmly at the breathless pursuer.
Multiply one wriggly, slippery, tricky little pig by three, and you will see that Rachel had no small contract that had to be attended to. Her shouts and the names she called the callous animals made the audience in the stair-windows shake with amusement. But they smothered their laughter so she wouldn’t hear them and so find out that she was being watched.
Now and then one of the pigs would break away through the hedge at the rear of the grass-place which was set apart for drying the clothes. Again one of them would keep its head turned in order to watch its pursuer, and thus come unexpectedly up against the side of the house, or bump into the clothes-poles. At such times a piercing squeal, not of pain but of sheer surprise, would make the cold chills creep up the girls’ backs.
When Rachel was tripped up by one of the wily fellows and suddenly made to sit plump upon the ground, her audience could no longer keep silence. A roar of laughter rang out from young throats, and the breathless, perspiring cook lifted eyes which expressed such heartfelt rebuke, that Janet jumped from the window-seat and started down the stairs, calling to the girls to follow her.
“Come on, girls, we’ve all got to help Rachel catch those little rascals,” said she.
When Mrs. James and the five girls joined Rachel on the grass in the rear of the house, there began such jumping and running, such calling and laughing, as never was heard in Westchester County since the days of the Revolution.
The three pigs acted obsessed. They led their pursuers back and forth, in and out of hedges, under clothes-lines, and what-not. They would pretend to lag, and just as the shouting victor swooped to catch him, the pig would double back upon his tracks and leave his chagrined pursuer flat in the grass. Finally the pigs seemed to become blase over this tame sport, so they all three put their heads together momentarily as if for a conference.
Rachel considered this the moment she had been waiting for, so she tip-toed over, silently beckoning the girls to surround the pigs.
But the pigs had other plans in view. They divided their forces. One ran down the garden path to Natalie’s truck-farm. One chose the driveway that ran down to the woods and stream. And the third pig took to the highway that ran to Four Corners.
The human forces also divided, now, to give pursuit to each individual deserter from the barnyard. Natalie and Janet raced after the pig which went for the gardens and the tender greens growing there. Rachel and two of the girls chased the pig which ran for the woods; and Mrs. James, with Norma, went after the pig which headed towards Four Corners.
The three individual units had experiences wild and varied for almost an hour, then two of the contingents successfully made “drives” for exhausted pigs, and that netted them two squealing prisoners. Mrs. James and Norma, however, kept on chasing their runaway, until the former said: “Norma, I’ll buy Janet another pig, but I refuse to run into Four Corners after that squealer! Fancy what Amity Ketchum will do. He’ll roll the funny incident under his gossipy tongue for ages to come!”
Norma laughed and shook her head. She was too breathless to speak. But Mrs. James had turned her back on the pig and its objective Four Corners, and started to trudge homewards.
It was a belated breakfast that morning, but the merriest one the girls had ever had. Such funny experiences as each girl had to narrate, kept them all laughing. And Rachel’s version of her race after the pig was not the least amusing, you can rest assured.
“Why, that slippery little rascal shot like an arrow from the bow, making straight for Natalie’s lettuce beds. I thought I had secured a ‘tackle-hold’ on him but he slid instantly out of my hands,” said Janet.
“Yes and he came plump into my shins and tripped me over him. I fell flat on my face in the potato-hills. One good thing that fall did, it frightened away a flock of potato-bugs,” laughed Natalie, when Janet had to pause for breath.
Now Janet took up the thread of narrative again. “In and out of the hills of corn and around the beanpoles he circled, until we both were dizzy. Everytime Nat or I thought we had him at a disadvantage we would swoop with open hands, only to find ourselves clutching a handful of dirt, and the little beast waiting a few feet distant as if to encourage us to keep up the game.”
The other girls laughed merrily at the description of the chase for this particular pig, and Rachel stood leaning against the pantry door, shaking with amusement.
“Girls, I never knew Janet could dance so wonderfully as she did while whirling about after the pig. Pavlova isn’t in it with our Janet! If we only had had a camera to take snap-shots of her high-kicking and leaping, she might have won a medal for her grace from the Girl Scout National Headquarters,” was Natalie’s conclusion to the story.
“How did you finally get him back to the pen?” Mrs. James wanted to know now.
“Why, in his mad circling he led us quite near to the barnyard, and it was Nat’s idea to entice him by means of a trough full of tidbits,” replied Janet “I realized that diplomacy was the only snare with which to catch pigs, so we left him standing with heaving sides and watching us suspiciously, while we filled the trough and dragged it out close to his snout.
“He was not equal to that temptation and fell instantly. Nat dragged the trough gradually back to the pen while I crept up behind the pig and the moment he had passed within the fence-gate, I closed it.”
“Have you any idea how he escaped the first time?” asked Mrs. James.
“Yes, one, or perhaps all three of the pigs burrowed under my slat fence and crept out through the tunnel they had dug,” said Janet. “But I rolled a rock into it and they’ll try a long time before they can move that obstacle out of the way.”
“Nat and you had a thrilling experience but there were only two to enjoy it. You should have been with Rachel and us—we raced to the woods after our pig, where there was so much room that there was no need for circling or doubling back in his tracks,” laughed Belle, at Janet’s conclusion.
“Miss Mason and her scouts heard the shouting and soon joined us in the chase. It must have looked exactly like one of the slap-stick movie comics where a long string of farmers, policemen, summer-boarders, and the heroine, chase the cross-eyed villain. But we managed to drive him—the pig, I mean—into one of the tents and before he could squirm his way out under the tent-flap, a dozen of us pounced upon him.
“I ought to be exact and say that one or two of us pounced upon the pig, while the other girls pounced upon each other! Then Rachel said: ‘Now you’se got him, whad yoh goin’ to do wid him?’
“We hadn’t thought of how we could get him back to the pen, but Miss Mason was equal to the emergency, as she is equal to anything, I do believe—and we soon had him in a burlap potato-sack. It was a simple thing to carry him back to the pen after that.”
When Belle had finished her narrative, all eyes turned to Mrs. James for her account of the chase, but she shook her head and said nothing. Norma laughed at their surprise, but kept silent.
“What’s the matter? Why don’t you tell us of the fun you had in catching your pig?” asked Janet.
“Nothing to tell,” was Mrs. James’ reply.
“Because we never caught the pig!” exclaimed Norma.
“What! Then where is he now?” asked Janet, aghast.
“You’ll have to consult an oracle for that information, Janet,” returned Mrs. James, calmly. “Norma and I are mere mortals, without the gift of a wooden ouigi board.”
Everyone but Janet screamed at this retort, but she ran to the side porch to gaze fearfully up the road that went to Four Corners. Nothing that resembled a wee pig was in sight.
“Come in and finish your breakfast, Janet,” called Norma.
“I want my pig. I’ve lost a week’s income on hens not laying, but I can’t afford to lose a pig, too!” explained Janet, returning to the table, nevertheless, and eating her breakfast.
“Janet, if two pigs fail to afford you all the trouble you want in the future, I agree to buy you a third trouble-maker. But I refused to expire of heart failure due to chasing that pig all the way to Four Corners!” was Mrs. James’ emphatic declaration.
But neither plan had to be followed, because Si Tompkins caught the vagrant pig as it wandered into his barn yard and tried to eat the chicken-corn he had scattered for his poultry. Then when Frances drove the car to Four Corners for the mail, she was handed the feed-bag with the pig curled up inside of it.
She took the bag and remarked laughingly: “Janet will be so glad to have her prodigal pig back again, Mr. Tompkins. But you can send her a bill for the corn he stole from you.”
Mr. Tompkins laughed as he said: “Tell Miss Janet not to become too fond of her pigs or she won’t want to eat them in the fall. She’ll act like my wife—I have to send her away on a visit from home when killin’ time comes around.”
Although Frances was delighted to recover the pig for Janet, she did not forget the message for Mr. Ames—to deliver a load of good compost at Green Hill as soon as possible. The order was placed in Ames’s post office box and he got it when he stopped for his mail.
Having a short time, that day, in which he could do a little extra job, he decided to take the manure to Green Hill Farm at once. No one was found in or about the house when he drove in at the side-gate, so he used his judgment and forked out the compost where he thought it was needed.
He had no idea that Natalie wanted half of it back in the garden, nor did he know that Norma was going into the floricultural business and wanted the rest of the manure for the flower-beds in the backyard where she was planting her slips and seeds.
He saw that the narrow beds running along both sides of the house and in front, had not yet been spaded over, so he thought the girls had planned to fertilize them and raise flowers there. Consequently, he spread the fresh compost all over these beds and then climbed back to his wagon-seat. He wiped his brow as he looked back at his finished work and murmured: “It’s out of their way up against those foundations, even if it isn’t just where they wanted it put.”
It was dreadfully warm that day, and the noonday sun fairly baked everything it shone upon. It shed the full power of its heat-rays upon the strips of ground where the compost had been heaped, causing the pungent odor from the fresh fertilizer to fill the air all about the house.
Mrs. James and Rachel had accompanied the girls to the farmyard to assist Janet in placing stout boards inside the pig pen fence to keep the little porkers from escaping again the way they had done before.
After Farmer Ames drove away Rachel came back to the house, smiling with gratification as she thought of the way she had bossed the construction on the pig-pen. But she had not reached the steps of the back stoop before she frowned. Then she wrinkled her flat nose and lifted her head to sniff audibly.
“Laws-ee! I mus’ta lef’ somethin’ on dat stove, and now it’s done gone and burned fit to smell us outen house and home!” was her instant comment as she rushed indoors.
But she found nothing on the kitchen stove, so she came out on the stoop again and sniffed a second time. This time it was a louder and a longer sniff. But all her sniffing failed to reveal the cause of the awful smell.
“Now dat’s funny. I could sware as soon as I git out on dis stoop dere is a smell of somethin’ like scorched wool, er a tan-yard, er a skunk. But it don’t smell in my kitchen, atall!” said she.
She had to give her attention to dinner, now, so no more time could be given to searching for the cause of an odor.
Mrs. James now came along the lane from the barn yard, and as soon as she came within the radius of the odor which had escaped from the compost, she sniffed faintly but without any unusual interest in the matter.
She too, entered the kitchen and asked Rachel if she had burned something on the stove; and the answer was that it must have been a passing automobile that had cheap gasoline in the tank, to have left such a stench as to fill the air all around the county.
But the girls soon followed after Mrs. James and they commented freely over the odor. Janet asked: “What can it be?”
“It isn’t singular—it is a plural smell,” laughed Belle.
“Yes, it’s a number of vile odors combined,” added Norma.
“Rachel must have left sour milk standing about, somewhere,” suggested Natalie.
The girls went in at the kitchen door instead of going to the side porch as they usually did, and Natalie immediately asked Rachel if she had sour milk in the kitchen.
“Sour milk! Laws-ee no, Chile! I uses all our sour milk fer pancakes,” returned Rachel.
“I noticed a bad smell too, when I came in, girls,” commented Mrs. James.
“Well, so’d I an’ I wonnered if I left somethin’ burnin’ but I diden’!” declared Rachel, beginning to sniff again.
The girls followed Mrs. James into the living-room, all sniffing audibly, and peering about for some cause for the smell.
“The smell in the dining-room is stronger than anywhere else, Jimmy,” remarked Natalie.
“I hope no stray cat or dog has found its way down to the cellar to die there,” ventured Mrs. James, suddenly thinking she had a clue.
“Let’s go down and see. We’ll take a flash-light and go into all the dark corners,” suggested Janet.
“We’ll open the outside cellar-way and let the sun shine in, too,” added one of the girls.
Mrs. James led the way out to the side porch to reach the cellar-door from that side of the house. But she had no sooner stepped down the steps than she quickly covered her nose with one hand and wildly waved the other hand to warn the girls back indoors.
“What is it?” everyone demanded excitedly, as Mrs. James ran in and slammed the door. Then she hurriedly went about the room closing all the windows.
“What has happened, Jimmy?” cried a chorus of girlish voices anxiously.
Then Mrs. James sat down in the rocker and laughed immoderately. When she could speak she said: “Well, I’ve discovered the cause of that tannery odor!”
Natalie ran and opened the door and stuck her head out to see. Then she, too, came back and laughed. “We’ve got to close all the windows and doors in the house until Norma removes the trouble.”
“Me? What have I got to do with it?” was Norma’s astonishing retort.
“Farmer Ames unloaded a cartful of compost right under the windows on both sides of the house and along the front,” was the reply. “And it has to be removed without delay or we’ll have to sleep with closed windows the rest of the year.”
“We all will help Norma cover the stuff, or carry it to the garden,” suggested Mrs. James.
So all hands were busily employed for a time, thereafter, in taking the compost which Natalie needed for the garden, to the land alongside the fence, while Norma and her workers carried what she needed for the flower-beds and spaded it under in the soil.
Natalie discovered that the weeds were trying to get a hold in her garden so she remained working and weeding, after the fertilizer had been removed from the proximity of the windows.
Frances and Belle went to Four Corners for Rachel who had to have a dozen eggs for baking purposes, so Janet sauntered to her farmyard to see if she could not find one egg in the nests. When nothing but the china eggs were found in the nests, she stood glaring at the large clumsy hens. She clenched her teeth and muttered: “I should think you’d all be so glad to lay eggs for me, after all the money and time I’ve given you just so you could live at Green Hill.”
Then she went to the separate nest where the setting-hen was expected to hatch the eggs. The moment Janet came near her, however, the old hen flew from the nest and ran out into the yard. As she had acted this way before, Janet thought nothing of it, but she took advantage of these absences to examine the eggs. Today she picked up one of the eggs to look for the pecking that would foretell the coming of a chick, but no such sign was visible in the shell.
Each egg was closely examined and as the last egg was found to have no chip in its surface, Janet sighed heavily. Just then, the egg slipped and fell upon the ground. Instantly a most dreadful odor filled the coop and drove Janet outdoors.
“Dear me! I suppose I have killed the chick that was in the egg, by letting it fall upon the floor,” was Janet’s thought, but she ran to the house to consult Rachel about it, and learn why a chick should smell so badly.
Rachel listened to the story and asked: “Does that ole hen leave them aigs fer long at a time?”
“She has been getting off the nest quite often the last few days, but I don’t know how long she remains away.”
“Den somethin’ is wrong wid dem aigs. No settin’ hen woul’ leave her nes’ fer nuttin’ ef she was gettin’ results f’om settin’!” was Rachel’s verdict.
As Janet knew nothing of the ways of setting hens, or the chicks that would surely follow from such devotion on the part of the hen, she made no reply. After a few moments of thought, Rachel added:
“Did Farmeh Ames sell you dem aigs foh fertilized kind?”
“Fertilized! Mercy no, Rachel. Natalie and I got the eggs from your pantry. We were in a hurry to get the eggs under the hen so we used the store eggs. But we made good the next day when Ames brought in the ones he had promised me.”
“Yoh diden go an’ set dem aigs what comes in pasteboard boxes f’om Foh Cornehs?” cried Rachel, astounded at such ignorance.
“Of course we did. They were the only eggs in the house, that night we wanted to set the hen.”
“Laws-ee, Chile! No wonder dat ole hen yearns to git off dose aigs so offen. Dey was water-glassed an’ nuttin’ neveh will hatch outen dem but trouble!” Then as the full truth dawned upon Rachel, she sank into a kitchen chair and threw her gingham apron over her head and swayed back and forth with hysterical laughter.
“Rachel, I tell you to stop laughing like that!” commanded Janet, highly indignant.
“Oh, oh, Oh! Dat am too funny foh anyt’ing!” gasped Rachel.
“What is so funny about it?” demanded Janet.
For answer, Rachel got up and started for the barn yard, closely followed by the stock-scout. Arrived at the chicken-house she found the hen still absent from duty, so she carefully removed all the eggs and put them in her apron.
“Now you waits till I burry dese out far f’om here, so no danger kin come of smashin’ ’em premature. Meanwhiles, you clean up dat smelly mess f’om dat floor, cuz no self-respeckin’ chicken will come in dis house wid dat perfume fillin’ the place.” Rachel chuckled as she ordered Janet about the task, then she went out.
The eggs were safely buried in the barnyard and Rachel came back to finish the work she had taken upon herself to do.
“Now you cleans out all dem nestes and put new straw in. I’ll wash out dis floor wid water and a broom to sweeten it”
When this was finished to Rachel’s satisfaction, she clucked to the setting-hen that had entered the opening from the chicken-yard and had stood upon one leg eyeing the work.
“You Jan, you runs to my kitchen, now, and carries back dat basket wid aigs whats standin’ on a shelf. And find a candle, too, and bring it along.”
“A candle! What’s that for?” asked Janet.
“I’m goin’ to candle ebery aig afore I puts it in dis nest All dem aigs is promised dat dey is strickly fresh, yistidy, but I aint goin’ to let you take any moh chances.”
When Janet returned with the eggs and the candle, Rachel said: “Did you eber see dat tiny speck what’s set in the yolk of most eggs?”
“Does it look like a dark drop of blood?” queried Janet.
“Yeh, da’s whad it looks like! Well, dat is all dere is to an aig foh hatchin’ pu’poses. Some eggs ain’t got no spot and dey won’t hatch chicks. I’ll candle the aigs we set to make sure dey is all right.”
“What would you call that speck?” asked Janet, more surprised at the ways of Nature than she could express.
“Dat’s its life-germ. Widdout dat no aig has life, dey says. But I ain’t no follower of all dem germ-fads, myself.”
Rachel selected fifteen good eggs and placed them in the straw, then she coaxed the hen back upon the nest and left her. As she left the chicken-house she said to Janet: “Don’t you go and han’le dem aigs, atall’. Ef you does, dat hen will get mad and stop hatchin’. Jus’ let hens mind their own bu’ness’ cuz they knows it better’n us.”
“I never knew the hen would mind my looking for the pecks in the shell.”
“Well, she do! Nature does that peckin’, on time, and you ner dat ole hen can do it fer Nature.”
But Janet had not told Rachel that the other eggs had been placed under the hen at various times, so she did not learn until she read it in the poultry book, that a hen will not remain upon eggs placed in the nest any later than the first lot.
On the way back to the house Janet complained: “Dear me, Rachel, I’ve lost all this time waiting for those good-for-nothing eggs to hatch out. I might almost have had a brood of chicks in another week.”
“Ain’t yoh glad we foun’ it out afore all dem aigs exploded and killed dat hen?” laughed Rachel. “Cuz dat’s de way of water-glass aigs, sometimes.”
“Really!” was Janet’s astonished exclamation.
“Yeh,” Rachel giggled. “I done hear once dat a dozen water-glass aigs hatched out a hull winderpane! Ha, ha, HA!”
Rachel’s shout of laughter was so appreciative of her own joke, that Janet joined in laughing despite the fear she still entertained that her poultry business was going bankrupt.
But Rachel sobered down as she reached the steps and she turned to encourage Janet. “Don’t you give up hope cuz dat lazy hen woulden manerfachoor plate glass for you, Chile. You keep on watchin’ dem nestes; now you locked your fowl up in a small yard you’ll get aigs, all right!”
With a loud chuckle, Rachel went indoors while Janet went to the side porch to sit and ponder over her problems.
But Rachel had planned a trick by which Janet would be encouraged, so she took the rest of the eggs from the basket on the shelf, and at the first opportunity, she got away from the house. She went to the barn by devious ways to avoid being seen, and then she placed the eggs in the different nests. This done she crept back to her kitchen work.
CHAPTER VII
THE FORTUNE IN KEEPING A COW
While Janet had been occupied at the chicken yard, Frances had brought home the “Stock Farmer’s Catalogue” that Janet had written for. It had come in the morning’s mail and now was on the porch table. Janet caught it up eagerly and sat down to pore over the pages. Soon she was deeply interested in reading about cows.
She read that the profit in keeping a cow was enormous. Saying that one cow milked but the minimum quantity of twelve quarts of milk a day—which was very little for a good cow (so the book said) one could have all the pure milk needed in the home, your floods of rich cream over berries and cereal, and have cream for coffee at breakfast time; make butter, and drink refreshing butter milk on warm summer days, and still have enough milk, cream, butter and buttermilk to sell to the neighbors to pay for the keep of the cow.
“My, I never dreamed that money was so easy to make as all this!” sighed Janet to herself, as she wondered why she had been led into spending her capital for hens and pigs and had never thought seriously of a cow!
She took a sheet of paper from the book and having a stump of a pencil in her pocket, she began figuring.
“We are paying Ames sixteen cents a quart for milk. He sells us four quarts a day for the house, and I have to buy two to four extra for those pigs. I suppose Miss Mason gets about four quarts for her scouts besides. That totals ten to twelve quarts.
“If I keep a cow, I can sell all that milk to the other girls and give my pigs skim-milk, ’cause this book says skim-milk is as good for them as pure milk. That’s sixteen times twelve every day.
“This book says I can get about ninety cents a quart for the heavy cream and about sixty for light cream. I don’t know the difference, but I will accept those figures. That’s ninety plus sixty cents more, every day. That makes one ninety-two for milk and one fifty for cream—two dollars and forty cents every day. Then there is my saving of milk for the pigs, and the money made on the butter I might churn once or twice a week. Oh, what a fortune!”
Janet rocked in the chair as she sighed and rolled her eyes skyward as if for inspiration of ways or means to find a cow. Then she turned her attention to the book, once more.
“It says here that a bag of feed will cost about three dollars and a bag lasts about twelve days. That will make three bags a month—about nine dollars for feed. Then the life insurance, accident and illness costs about a dollar a month. But that is a good idea—to insure the cow!” Janet sat approving the insurance plan and then and there determined to heavily insure the life of her cow.
“Well, that’s all it will cost, and just balance that with the income! Phew, it seems almost incredible!” murmured Janet as she studied the figures.
“That money looks almost like profiteering, but it isn’t a bit!” declared Janet to herself. “Even if I sell the milk for fifteen cents a quart to Jimmy and the scouts, I will have a great big balance of profit. I’ll sell it for fifteen because I’ll be using the farm pastures and cow sheds on the place, and I will have to call on the scouts, now and then, to show me how to milk and churn the butter, so I will give them that cent a quart off the retail price.” Janet now began to consider herself a philanthropist.
“Besides the cheap milk the scouts get, I will send them a pot cheese, once in a while, and all the buttermilk they like.” But Janet suddenly thought of the prices charged in the city for fresh buttermilk, so she decided not to be too generous in giving away the buttermilk, but reserve that privilege for a later day.
“Butter is worth sixty-five cents a pound at Four Corners, but I don’t think Tompkins’s butter is as sweet as it might be,” was Janet’s criticism when she pictured the rich golden butter she would turn out of that churn!
“I don’t know how much butter a quart of milk makes, but say I can get ten pounds of butter a week, that makes six dollars and fifty cents for butter. Dear me! Just think of it! All that money and the cow only costs on an average of fifteen dollars a month to keep her in fine condition.”
When Janet got as far as this in her financial calculations, Mrs. James came out on the porch to see what she was so exultant about.
“Can you sit down a moment, Jimmy, and listen to this?” asked Janet, flushed with the thrill of soon being a millionaire.
“Two moments, if you need them,” smiled Mrs. James.
“Well, then, just listen to this. It’s true, too!” and Janet began painting a word-picture in such alluring colors as to cause her hearer to wonder what it all meant.
“No farm is really a farm, you know, Jimmy, until there is a cow on the place. Think of the rural delight of driving a gentle-eyed bovine creature to the pasture early in the morning while the dew is still sparkling upon every blade of verdure. Now feel the warm glow about the heart when you call for the cow at eventide and find her eagerly lowing at the gate of the pasture—eager to follow you home. Then the gratitude she pours out to you by means of pure, frothy milk—pouring into and filling full twelve-quart pails every day as a token of her thanks.”
Janet had to stop a moment for lack of breath, so Mrs. James took advantage of the enforced pause to say: “Is this the preface to a book you are writing, Janet, or are you planning to buy a cow on instalments and need me to endorse the promissory note for you?”
“Oh, Jimmy, please don’t interrupt my thought until I am quite through!” exclaimed Janet, reprovingly.
“I beg your pardon, Janet—I thought your train of thought was broken,” was Mrs. James’s amused reply.
“No, the most important part of the idea is coming: rows of figures! That’s what talks better than I can explain.” Then Janet spread out the sheet of paper upon which she had figured and explained each column of numerals—added, subtracted and multiplied; a few were divided to reach the desired results.
“Now, this column is what it costs to keep a cow, Jimmy. And this next column is what I can make by selling the milk. I based my computation on the minimum of twelve quarts of milk per day, which is really too little for a good cow, you know. Then the third column is what I can get for butter, cream and buttermilk. The skim-milk I shall have to give to the pigs, so I can’t sell that. But just look at the profit I can get out of one cow!” Janet watched Mrs. James’s expression eagerly to see the effect of that astounding fortune so plainly shown in the figures—on paper.
Before committing herself, Mrs. James took the paper and studied it. Then she remarked casually: “You forgot to jot down the initial cost of buying a cow, Janet. How can you count on the cost of fifteen dollars a month if you haven’t secured the cow?”
Janet’s face showed her chagrin. “That’s so! I forgot all about the cost of the cow. But she doesn’t cost very much, does she?”
“I am not sure what they cost today, because everything has advanced so outrageously. But I know that a good cow which is guaranteed to give twelve quarts of milk per day used to sell for a hundred dollars—before the war.”
“O-n-e H-U-N-D-R-E-D Dol-lars!” gasped Janet.
“That was back in 1913. I haven’t the least idea what one costs today.”
“Oh!” was all Janet said as she collapsed in the middle and drooped over in the chair.
“We might buy an old one that gives less milk, for less money,” ventured Mrs. James.
“No,” sighed Janet, hopelessly. “It doesn’t pay to buy old stock! I’m beginning to learn that much. I used old eggs to hatch out and I lost more than a week’s valuable time by it. If I buy an old cow just because she is cheap, I shall have funeral bills to pay, and the insurance costs more on old lives.”
Mrs. James could not restrain a hearty laugh at Janet’s words, although she knew the girl was very serious over the matter.
“I guess I’ll stick to the pigs and chickens this year, and save money so I can buy a cow next year—because that’s where my fortune can be made!” declared Janet, resignedly.
Mrs. James now began to think very seriously so Janet got up and stretched herself before saying: “I think I’ll go to the barn yard and watch my pigs improve.”
She spoke sarcastically, but Mrs. James said: “I just had an idea. Will you leave that paper with me for a time? I want to look it over.”
“Certainly! Keep it forever. I will not need it again—My! one cow, more than one hundred dollars!” With this muttered expression of disgust, Janet walked away. She was passing the kitchen door when Rachel came out.
“Janet, I’se got to have one ob dem aigs back agin. I has to use one moh in my cake. Kin you git it foh me?”
“Yes, but you warned me about touching the eggs once they were under the hen. And you said it was not good to annoy the hen once she sat contentedly upon the eggs.”
“Yeh, I knows. Anyway, run to the hen house and see if mebbe dey ain’t jus’ one egg in dem nestes,” urged Rachel, anxiously.
“Maybe one of those lazy, good-for-nothing hens changed her mind by this time, Rachel, but I doubt it very much,” laughed Janet.
Rachel stood watching her go down the lane, and she smiled broadly as she returned to the kitchen to bake the cake. Janet went over to one of the newly filled straw nests without any hope of finding anything there. But the moment she spied two smooth eggs beside the china egg in the nest, she gave such a war whoop of joy that every chicken in the runway started calling and the cock began crowing with fear.
She was about to race from the hen house when she remembered to look in the remaining nests. To her added delight and astonishment she found four more eggs.
“Well, well! This isn’t as bad as I thought it was. I suppose the hens are becoming accustomed to the change from Ames’s farm to Green Hill, and they like it better now,” soliloquized Janet as she skipped joyously along the walk.
“Rachel! Oh, Rachel! I got six eggs—all fresh and clean!” cried Janet when she came near enough to the house to be heard by the cook.
Rachel ran out upon the stoop to express her amazement, and Janet said: “How much are six strictly fresh eggs, Rachel. I am not going to charge Jimmy as much as Ames does.”
Rachel looked stunned. She had not thought of being charged for the eggs when she took them out of the box and placed them in the nests, yet she knew it would be dishonest to expect Mrs. James to pay for them out of Natalie’s money.
“Mis’ James knows what dey is wuth,” was all she said, as she took the eggs and put them back in the basket whence they had been so recently taken.
Janet had hurried to the porch and now led Mrs. James out to the kitchen to show her the wonderful eggs.
When they went back to the side porch, Mrs. James said: “Janet, this is the idea I had when you spoke about the cow. If you cannot afford to buy one for yourself, why not form a company and every one at Green Hill own a share in the cow. It will be easier for you as a cow makes lots of work that you do not dream of, and with seven of us to do the work neither will be overtaxed. We would all take turns. One would drive the cow to pasture in the morning, another bring her home at night. One must keep the pails and pans clean, another look after the feed. Still another will milk and another churn butter. Every week we will change about so that each one gets an opportunity to learn how to do all the work.”
“But who will get the profit? and who will buy the cow?” wondered Janet, the idea not altogether displeasing as long as she felt she could not own the cow herself.
“If seven of us pay, it is only seven times into one hundred. I think we all can manage to pay that much for the returns we shall get. And I thought of asking Mr. Marvin to advance us the cash now and let us pay him back in weekly payments.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea! I think he will do it, too.”
“We can sell to the house and the Camp the products we need that we now are buying from Ames and Four Corners’ store, and that money will go into our fund. Then, when butter is made, you can buy the skim-milk for your pigs at a small price. What do you say?”
“I say it is great! Let’s go and tell the other girls!” cried Janet, eagerly.
As Mrs. James led the way over to Norma’s flower beds where that worker was digging and planting without stopping to mop her perspiring brow, Janet thought to herself “This old world isn’t such a bad place to live in, after all!”
What a difference a few eggs and a plan for a cow made in her sense of things. Yet everything was really unchanged, in fact. For the old hens were no different than they were when Janet purchased them from Ames, and the fun and fortune to be had from the cow was but the vision created by a few cheerful words from a sympathetic friend. Still, if we must dream at all, let us have happy dreams instead of nightmares.
The proposition of syndicating a cow was met with hilarity at first, from every girl spoken to; but they found cause to consider the matter as an interesting one.
“We’ve got a ready-made farm and acres of free grass, so why not keep a cow?” said Natalie.
“If we expect to be real farmers, we have to have a cow,” was Norma’s comment.
“And think of the money saved on milk and other things that a cow makes,” was Frances’ reply.
“The butter is churned!” corrected Janet, with superior wisdom for had she not read that book on stock-raising. “The cow merely gives the milk, she doesn’t make anything else.”
“Well, then, who does make the milk if she merely gives it,” retorted Frances, thereby creating a laugh at Janet’s expense.
“When you think of all the money we can make and still have cream and butter for our own use, it seems too good to be true,” said Belle.
“Can’t we get one tomorrow, Jimmy?” asked Natalie.
“I suppose it is too late to look about for one to-day, eh?” asked Janet.
“We’ll plan to drive through the country tomorrow morning and hunt about for a likely beast,” replied Mrs. James.
“I don’t suppose Farmer Ames has a cow for sale, has he?” asked Janet. “If we got it of him we’d be able to charge it.”
“Why, Jan! You surely wouldn’t buy anything else of him, would you? Just look at those useless hens and rooster! They never laid an egg since you’ve had ’em!” exclaimed Natalie.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, girls. The chickens laid six fine eggs today, so Ames’s couldn’t help it if they took a week to finish the eggs,” said Janet.