DAFF AND DANDY.

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 36, 13 February 1930, Page 4

DAFF AND DANDY.

The boys bought a pair of Bantams, and turned them loose in a wild part of the great walled garden, shut off from the rest by wire netting.

They found it a most lovelyplace to live in: there were tall trees -where they could roost, plenty of bare ground where they could scratch for grubs,-and in one corner under the south wall was a bed of nettles, just the place Daff thought, where she could lay her eggs. •

The more she looked at it; the. more .che liked it; so she scratched a little hollow in the ground, and in a week there were six beautiful eggs, hidden by the nettles that grew *all and thick all round.

Daff was very proud of them, and cackled loudly when each one appeared. ■' •

Dandy was just as proud as she was, and crowed and strutted about the garden, as if he owned it—as, perhaps, he thdught h,e did

Then Dan 1 began to sit and day aitev day she crouched there, only leaving .the eggs for a few minutes, when she thought she.really must have a' little exercise and something to eat.

Dandy hung about the, nettlebed all day, and at niglit roosted up a tree quite near, in case Daff wanted Mm, As it happened, it was lu'rky he did so. ,'[ Old Musty, the stoat, left his lair under a pile of faggots crept along the hedge, whertT he often caught mice, and sometimes sleeping birds.

At the end of the hedge was a wall though he had never yet climbed it.

To-mght, however, as he had found nothing to eat Along the hedge, he decided to climb over the wall. Like a shadow he crept -vj) the ivy and dowa the other side.

. From right under his nose came a \varm scent that remindei him of a poultry farm ho knew of, a few folds away. '" ■ •

Silently he crept forward, ai^td in the dim light he saw DafE sitting patiently on her eggs. They were nearly ready to hatch.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Musty, and set up a squawk of terror. He was on her at on-je, holding her with his strong little paws, and frying to grab her neck with his sharp white teeth.

Somehow she managed to dodga his first bite, and he only got a mouthful of feathers. Then there was k crashing in "the nettles;, something feathered struck him, and two sharp spurs were hammering at his head, •."""■ Round like: a flash he went, and sprang at his enemy, but the little fury feaped in the air and met nis spring 'with horny spikes that sent him spinning half stunned to the ground. Then Dandy jumped on him and hammered him, and drove hi* spurs into his sides and head and wherever he could, till Musty wriggledf ree and ran off at his best p?ce. Up the wall he went, and disappeared in the gloom. Dandy strutted round the nest, crowing till he nearly hurt his throat. Not one of the eggs had been even cracked in the scuffle, and a day or two . afterwards, when the boys ran down *o the rarden, they found that they had eight Bantams instead of two, six of them more like,, little balls of yellow fluff than, anything else, while Dandy stood on guard rvady to scratch food for his family or to fight for them.