“But one bright morning we heard Mrs. Bantam clucking and calling with all her old vigor; and there she was at the kitchen-door, the prettiest and proudest of little mothers, with three tiny chicks not much larger than the baby chippies you saw in the nest, Florence, but wonderfully active and vigorous for their size.  We named them Bob and Dick and Jenny, and, as they grew older, were never tired of watching their comical doings.  Their mother, too, afforded us great amusement, while we found much in her conduct to admire and praise.  She was a fussy, consequential little body, but unselfishly devoted, and ready to brave any danger that threatened her brood.  Charlie and and I learned more than one useful lesson from the bantam hen and her young family.

“One of these lessons we put into verse, which, if I can remember, I will repeat to you.  We called it

CHICKEN DICK THE BRAGGER.

    ’Scratch! scratch! 
    In the garden-patch,
    Goes good Mother Henny;
    Cluck! cluck! 
    Good luck!  Good luck! 
    Come, Bob and Dick and Jenny!

    A worm! a worm! 
    See him squirm! 
    Who comes first to catch it! 
    Quick! quick! 
    Chicken Dick,
    You are the chick to snatch it!

    “Peep! peep! 
    While you creep,
    My long legs have won it! 
    Cuck-a-doo! 
    I’ve beat you! 
    Don’t you wish you’d done it?”

    Dick!  Dick! 
    That foolish trick
    Of bragging lost your dinner;
    For while to crow
    You let it go,
    Bob snatched it up—­the sinner!

    Bob!  Bob! 
    ’T was wrong to rob
    Your silly little brother,
    And in the bush
    To fight and push,
    And peck at one another.

    But Bobby beat,
    And ate the treat.—­
    Dear children, though you’re winners,
    Be modest all;
    For pride must fall,
    And braggers lose their dinners.’

“And now I will tell you an adventure of young Dick’s, in which a habit he had of crowing on all occasions proved very useful to him.  He grew to be a fine handsome fellow, and was sold to a family who lived on the meadow-bank.

“There was a big freshet the next autumn, the water covering the meadows on both sides of the river, and creeping into cellars and yards and houses.  It came unexpectedly, early one morning, into the enclosure where Dick, with his half-dozen hens, was confined, and all flew for refuge to the roof of the neighboring pig-pen.  But the incoming flood soon washed away the supports of the frail building, and it floated slowly out into the current to join company with the wrecks of wood-piles and rail fences, the spoils from gardens and orchards, in the shape of big yellow pumpkins and rosy apples, bobbing about in the foaming muddy stream, and all the other queer odds and ends a freshet gathers in its course.