THE ADOPTED BROOD
"Oh, look, Bobby!" said Betty, as she jumped out of the swing, and went running down toward the hayfield. "Here comes Joe, and he has something to show us. I know it's a surprise."
Bobby looked, and then he and Betty went running to meet Joe, who was coming along the path by the orchard. He was carrying his straw hat carefully in one hand, and beckoning with his other hand for the children to hurry and see the surprise.
"What have you got?" shouted both the children, excitedly, as they came near.
"Eggs." said Joe.
"Oh, eggs," said Bobby and Betty. "Eggs—why eggs are nothing to see. We find them every day."
"Yes," said Joe, "but these are not hen's eggs—they are pheasant's eggs!"
Bobby and Betty looked, and sure enough, in Joe's hat were seven eggs—olive-brown in color.
"We were mowing in the meadow," said Joe, "and we almost ran over a mother pheasant on her nest. She flew up right under the horse's feet, and old Nell almost stepped into the nest. I took all the eggs, because a pheasant will not come back to the nest after she has been frightened away. She finds another place and makes a new nest. She won't go back to the old one."
"Well," said Bobby, "what are you going to do with the eggs?"
"Oh," said Joe, "I'm going to put them under that little brown bantam hen that wants to set, and let her hatch them."
So Bobby and Betty went with Joe, and watched him while he made a comfortable nest in an old box in the shop loft. Then he put the seven eggs in the nest carefully, and got the little bantam hen and put her in, too. She clucked and scolded, and when Joe put her in the box she stood up and moved the eggs round with her feet, to arrange them as she wished before she would settle down; but when Bobby and Betty peeped in, a little later, she was all comfortable for her long wait of three weeks. Joe put grain and water near by, and Bobby and Betty peeped in almost every day.
One day when the children went near the nest, they heard little peeping sounds, and ran to tell Joe. He came and lifted up the little bantam hen, although she scolded and pecked at him; and in the nest Bobby and Betty saw six little pheasant chicks and one egg that did not hatch. The pheasant chicks were little brown downy things, and Joe took hen, chicks, nest and all, and made a little coop for them under the orchard trees. The little chicks were very lively and very shy—not like hen chicks; they loved to run away and hide in the grass, and the children could hardly find them at all when they looked for them. Mother Bantam would cluck and run back and forth in the coop and call to them, she was so afraid something would happen. At last, one day, Joe decided to let the little bantam run with her brood, and show them how to scratch and find worms. So he took away the slats from the foot of the coop, and Mrs. Bantam stepped out.
The children saw the hen and chicks in the orchard grass. The little pheasants ran through the orchard and the little bantam hen followed them. What became of them nobody knew, and they have never been seen since. Joe thinks they are still out in the woods, and that the little pheasants are teaching their mother how to get her own food there.—Selected.
"Not mighty deeds make up the sum
Of happiness below:
But little acts of kindliness,
Which any child may show."