_Bedelia Amuses Herself._
HAPPY days succeeded each other with rapidity at the farm. Sally was
enchanted with the poultry yard and spent much time fussing over
the beautiful Cochin China and White Leghorn fowls. Already one
enterprising hen had hatched a brood of dear little fluffy, yellow
chicks and marched proudly around the yard clucking and scratching.
Sally thought she had never seen such rapacious youngsters. They were
always hungry, always peeping for more worms to eat. Sally longed to
pick up the dear little fluffy balls and kiss and cuddle them. They
reminded her of so many Easter penwipers running around on felt,
although in her tender little heart she hoped that the Easter chicks
were manufactured. It would have been such an act of cruelty to
slaughter the darling baby chickabiddies for horrid old penwipers.
Mr. Hale, however, to whom Sally often confided her views, remarked,
with a great want of sentiment, that it was really no worse than eating
them later on. At which the little girl became very thoughtful. She
was indeed extremely fond of chicken dinners as demonstrated by Mrs.
Hale.
Meantime Bob was absorbed in the Belgian hares and star guinea-pigs.
Mr. Hale made a business of raising them and Dr. North had purchased a
number of pairs, knowing how fond the children would become of them.
Sally adored them all and soon divided with them her love for the
chicks. These she could take up in her arms and cuddle and hug. They
were all tame and would permit almost any amount of petting. One day
Sally received a great surprise. She was hurrying down to the barns
where the cows were kept, to be introduced to a newly arrived baby
calf, when suddenly Peter Pan, whom she had securely tucked under her
arm, twisted himself around and remarked, in his funny little growling
voice, “I wish you wouldn’t squeeze me so tight. You really hurt me.”
Sally sat down suddenly on the grass just where she stood, she was so
astonished. Of course she dropped the bear, who quickly gained his
equilibrium and sat up on his haunches, rubbing first one elbow and
then the other, with such a comical expression that the child burst
out laughing. “I suppose you thought it was a dream,” said the Teddy
bear rather severely. “Well, it wasn’t. But I have discovered something
since then. In fact, since we have been down here in the country, I
have found out that if I am very quiet and sleep at night I can get
busy in the daytime. I was talking to a crow the other night. He hopped
in on the window sill after you had gone to sleep. He recommended me
to try it and it works like a charm.” Here Peter Pan turned a complete
somersault and looked so perfectly absurd in doing it that the child
lay back and laughed until she was weak.
[Illustration]
“The only thing that bothers me,” went on the Teddy bear, “is Bedelia.
She will be in mischief all the time now. So many avenues of enterprise
were closed to her at night.”
The little girl sat up and wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes.
“What made you tell her?” she inquired.
“I didn’t,” retorted the bear. “She simply followed my example from
force of habit. And now goodness knows what trouble she will stir up.”
“Why don’t you hibernate?” said the child reflectively. “She would
follow your example and then I could waken you up and——.” Sally broke
off suddenly. She had just caught a glimpse of a small brown figure
skulking along in the shadow of the hollyhocks.
“There she is now,” she exclaimed. “I wonder what she can be up to.”
In another moment a great clucking and squawking was heard in the
direction of the hen house. Sally quickly caught up Peter Pan and raced
thither as fast as her legs could carry her.
And a comical scene it was that revealed itself to the little girl
as she hastily swung open the door of the hen house, which already
stood ajar. Firmly seated on the nest of the big White Leghorn hen was
Bedelia, her ample proportions elaborately spread out over the eggs of
the distracted biddy; nor would she be dislodged by all the frenzied
pickings and cluckings of the outraged mother.
“Really, my dear, you are very unwise,” remarked Peter Pan to the
triumphant Bedelia, with a solemn wink. “Suppose one of the hired men
had discovered you?”
Sally, however, wasted no time in reasoning. She simply picked up the
naughty Bedelia and hurried her off to the house, where she locked her
securely in a big closet that opened from Miss Palmer’s bedroom.
It was a very roomy closet and there was a transom over the door which
made it sufficiently light for Bedelia to see what she was doing. But
there was nothing of interest except Miss Palmer’s trunk which was
locked and consequently inaccessible.
Bedelia after nosing around for a few moments was just about to give up
in despair, when suddenly she uttered a little shriek of joy. For she
stumbled over something soft, and lo and behold! there were the twins
and Little Breeches, sitting in a row far back against the wall, just
where nurse had plumped them down when they were unpacked.
There they had remained alone and forgotten since their arrival.
Bedelia’s fertile brain did not take very long to evolve a method of
escape now that she had discovered such valuable confederates in the
shape of her cubs; and she proceeded to shake them vigorously, one
after the other, which form of procedure left them very wide awake
indeed.
Under her able direction they first climbed upon the trunk and then
upon each other’s shoulders, making a sort of step-ladder, up which
Bedelia quickly climbed, and slipping through the transom which
happened to be open, took a flying leap right into the middle of Miss
Palmer’s bed.
Having given vent to her displeasure by rumpling up the bed clothes and
throwing the pillows on the floor, she trotted away without waiting to
liberate the cubs, whom she left to cool their heels in the closet.
Downstairs she skipped and out on to the big verandah, and seeing that
the coast was clear she took to her heels and sped as swiftly as her
paws could carry her in the direction of the barn.
Sally’s voice floated toward her, laughing and chattering to Peter Pan
as the two swayed backward and forward in the big swing under the apple
tree, now white with its perfumed blossoms.
But Bedelia had very good reasons of her own for wishing to remain
unseen, and forged ahead, keeping well in the shadow of the hollyhock
hedge, and this time succeeded in escaping observation.
Swiftly she hastened to the stables and there, once inside in the cool
half-twilight, paused and looked about her.
Most of the stalls were empty, but Doxey, the beautiful Shetland pony,
lifted his head with its flowing double mane and regarded her with
serious brown eyes.
But it was not Doxey to whom the meddlesome little bear now turned her
attention, but to Dick, the woolly white Angora goat, whose stall was
just next. In a moment she was swarming up on his back, pulling herself
up by his thick coat and finally taking her station on his back,
when grasping his horns with her two front paws she issued a series
of vigorous “get ups” that had the final effect of producing a series
of gyrations which the ambitious equestrienne had not taken into her
calculations.
[Illustration]
Suddenly heading around, Dick made a break for the door and once
outside proceeded to stand first on his hind and then on his fore legs,
for, failing to send the queer thing on his back sliding down over his
tail, he concluded that the next best thing was to start her slipping
over his head.
But neither performance served to dislodge Bedelia. She stuck like a
burr and all Dick’s frantic experiments in the matter of jumping and
bucking proved futile.
Round and round they spun, Dick’s hind hoofs describing the
circumference of a circle; until finally, with an indignant snort and
fully determined to rid himself of his terrifying incumbrance, he flung
himself full length on the turf and commenced to roll over and over.
Now indeed did Bedelia prove the depth of her generalship. She had
precious little time to consider how she should escape being flattened
out like a pancake, but she mastered the situation by a sudden stroke
of genius the like of which sometimes accompanies a desperate situation.
Suddenly she sprang into the air and continued to spring at intervals,
Dick’s revolving body giving her for a second a precarious foothold
as she descended, something after the fashion of a performing circus
pony who turns a barrel with his hoofs. And so she kept on hopping up
and down for her life while Dick continued to roll, horns and hoofs
alternately twinkling in the air. And how long the ridiculous comedy
would have gone on goodness only knows, had not Mike, the hired hand,
just then appeared on the scene.