"It sounded like a hen clucking. I wonder if it is possible that there is a hen up there."
"We will see," said Stuyvesant, "when we get our ladder done."
"Yes," said Phonny, "we must go and finish our ladder; and the nails--it is time to go and get the nails or they will be all burnt up."
The boys accordingly went back to the kitchen. They found that Dorothy had taken the nails away from the fire, and they were now almost cool.
Stuyvesant slid them off from the shovel upon a small board, which he had brought in for that purpose, and then they went back to the shop.
They found that Wallace had gone. He had finished boring the holes, and now all that Phonny had to do, was to cut off the wires and put them in. He had, however, now become so much interested in the operation of making the ladder, that he concluded to put off finishing the cage until the ladder was done. Besides, he was in a hurry to see whether there really was a hen up there on the loft.
So he helped Stuyvesant nail his ladder. Stuyvesant got a small gimlet to bore holes for the nails. Phonny thought that this was not necessary. He said they could drive the nails without boring.
Stuyvesant said that there were three objections to this: first, they might not go straight, secondly, they might split the wood, and thirdly, they would cause the wood to _break out_, as he called it, where they came through on the other side.
As soon as he had bored one hole he put a nail into it, and drove it almost through, but not quite through, as he said it might prove that he should wish to alter it. He then went to the other end of the same cross-bar, bored a hole there, and put a nail in, driving it as far as he had driven the first one. This was the topmost cross-bar of the ladder, and it was held securely in its place by the two nails.
Stuyvesant then took the bottom cross-bar and secured that in the same way. Then he put on the other bars one at a time, until his ladder was complete in form, only the cross-bars were not yet fully nailed. He and Phonny looked at it carefully, to see if all was right, and Stuyvesant, taking it up from the floor, placed it against the wall of the shop.
"Let me climb up on it," said Phonny.
"Not now," said Stuyvesant,--"wait till it is finished."
Stuyvesant then proceeded to drive the nails home, and clinch them.
The clinching was done, by putting an axe under the part of the ladder where a nail was coming through, and then driving. The point of the nail when it reached the axe, was deflected and turned, and bending round entered the wood again, on the back side, and so clinched the nail firmly. Thus the other holes were bored, and the other nails put in, and at length the ladder was completed.
Just as the boys were ready to carry it out, the door opened, and Beechnut came in.
Beechnut looked round at all that the boys had been doing, with great interest. He examined the ladder particularly, and said that it was made in a very workmanlike manner. Phonny showed Beechnut his cage too, though he said that he had pretty much concluded not to finish it that afternoon.
"I don"t see why you need finish it at all," said Beechnut. "You have got a very good cage already for your squirrel."
"What cage?" asked Phonny.
"This shop. It is a great deal better cage for him than that box,--_I_ think, and I have no doubt that he thinks so too."
"He would gnaw out of this shop," said Phonny.
"Not any more easily than he would gnaw out of the box," said Beechnut.
Phonny turned to his box and looked at the smooth surface of the pine which formed the interior. He perceived that Frink could gnaw through anywhere, easily, in an hour.
"I did not think of that," said Phonny "I must line it with tin."
He began to picture to his mind, the process of putting his arm into the box and nailing tin there, where there was no room to work a hammer, and sighed.
"Well," said he, "I"ll let him have the whole shop, to-night, and now we will go out and try the ladder."
The whole party accordingly went to the hen-house. Beechnut examined the small door that Stuyvesant had made, and the b.u.t.ton of the large door, while Stuyvesant was planting the ladder. Phonny was eager to go up first; Stuyvesant followed him.
Phonny mounted upon the floor of the loft, and immediately afterward began to exclaim,
"Oo--oo--Stivy,--here is old Gipsy, on a nest, and I verily believe that she is setting; I could not think what had become of old Gipsy."
Just at this time, Beechnut"s head appeared coming up the ladder. He called upon the boys to come back, away from the hen, while he went up to see. She was upon a nest there, squatted down very low, and with her wings spread wide as if trying to cover a great nest full of eggs.
"Yes," said Beechnut, "she is setting, I have no doubt; and as she has been missing a long time, I presume the chickens are about coming out."
"Hark!" said Beechnut.
The boys listened, and they heard a faint peeping sound under the hen.
Beechnut looked toward the boys and smiled.
Phonny was in an ecstacy of delight. Stuyvesant was much more quiet, but he seemed equally pleased. Beechnut said that he thought that they had better go away and leave the hen to herself, and that probably she would come off the nest, with her brood, that evening or the next morning.
"But stop," said Beechnut, as he was going down the ladder. "It is important to ascertain whether they are eggs or chickens under the hen. For if they are eggs they are one third your property, and if they are chickens, they are all mine."
"However," he resumed, after a moment"s pause, "I think we will call them eggs to-day. I presume they were all eggs when we made the bargain. To-morrow we will get them all down, and you, Phonny, may make a pretty little coop for them in some sunny corner in the yard."
Phonny had by this time become so much interested in the poultry, that he proposed to Stuyvesant to let him have half the care of them, and offered to give Stuyvesant half of his squirrel in return. Stuyvesant said that he did not care about the squirrel, but that he would give him a share of the hen-house contract for half the shop.
Phonny gladly agreed to this, and so the boys determined that the first thing for the next day should be, to put the shop and the tools all in complete order, and the next, to make the prettiest hen-coop they could contrive, in a corner of the yard. This they did, and Beechnut got the hen and the chickens down and put them into it. The brood was very large, there being twelve chickens in it, and they were all very pretty chickens indeed.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ACCIDENT.
About a week after the occurrences related in the last chapter, Mrs.
Henry was sitting one morning at her window, at work. It was a large and beautiful window, opening out upon a piazza.
The window came down nearly to the floor, so that when it was open one could walk directly out. There was a sort of step, however, which it was necessary to go over.
Mrs. Henry had a little table at the window, and she was busy at her work. There was a basket on the floor by her side. Malleville was sitting upon the step. She had quite a number of green leaves in her lap, which she had gathered in the yard. She said that she was going to put them into a book and press them.
Just then she heard Phonny"s voice around a corner, calling to her.
"Malleville! Malleville!" said the voice, calling loudly.
Malleville hastily gathered up her leaves, and called out, "What, Phonny? I"m coming."
Before she got ready to go, however, Phonny appeared upon the piazza.
"Malleville," said he, "come and see our chickens."
"Well," said Malleville, "I will come."
"And mother, I wish you would come out and see them, too," said Phonny.