OUR BOYS & GIRLS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 850, 15 June 1888, Page 5

OUR BOYS & GIRLS.

THE TURTLE’S COW.

(IIENKY NEWPORT.)

‘ Here they come, Polly ! But one more is missing.’ From his perch on the top of the wood-pile, Lige Bluebaker was looking down the lane leading to the cow-pasture, wherein his mother kept no cow, because she was too poor to own one.

‘Are you sure? Count them again, Lige. There ought to be only nine, yon know.' ‘Yes, I know; but there are only two, four, six, seven, eight, that is all. They are almost here now, and you can count them for yourself.’ In a few minutes they filed,in at the open gate of the dooryard, eight fine fat chickens ; and as soon as Solomon—the magnificent white Leghorn in the lead—caught sight of Polly, with her basket of corn, he stretohed out his neck and wings, set up a cackling, and half ran, half flew, belter skelter toward her, followed by a straggling line of pullets and cockerels. They were muddy, tired-looking, and, judging by the draggled appearance of their feathers, hud all been in a pond or stream of water. ‘That makes four gone in three days,’ said Lige, coming down from his perch, and looking on thoughtfully while the chickens devoured the corn as fast as Polly tossed it to them.

- ‘lt isn't hawks,’his sister said,, ‘because there are. no hawks about here big enough to carry, off full-grown chickens. It must be a fox. But how do they get so wet and muddy ? They wouldn’t run into the water to escape a. fox or anything else. Something must push them in.’ Lige thrust both hands deep into his trous'ers’ pockets and set his lips tightly together, as was liis habit whon anything puzzled him. * Bub they are never wet or muddy above the breast line,’ he said at last. ‘The feathers on their hacks are as smooth and clean as ever, and if they were pushed or .thrown into water, they would be wet all over. I’ll tell you what I’ll do ! ’ He took his hands out of his pockets and brought his right fiat down into the palm of his left hand with a smack that made the chickens jump. 4 I’ll follow them to-morrow morning, keeping out of sight as much as I can, and I will find out how they get wet, and what it is that carries them off. I will ask mother to let me take the shotgun, and if it is a fox—why, I will carry him home with me ; that’s all.’ , These.two—Polly and her .brother—had seen their little flock of chickens grow up from a single pullet and setting of eggs in the year they had lived with their mother on this little Western farm. They remembered the late broods which had come out in September, and which had spent the first few months of their lives either cuddled in Polly’s arms or huddled together in baskets behind the kitchen stove. - They could tell you how many had found their way, together with Polly's most appetizing pie-crust, into the oven of that very stove ; how many had fallen by the wayside o rercome with the pip, the gap, and other ailments of infantile chickenhood, and more than all the rest, how many had been sold to help pay the rent and to buy copper-toed boots, which would wear oat notwithstanding the copper toes. They could tell you, also, that each chicken which was carried off by the unknown enemy was a quarter of a dollar stolen from their mother’s thin purse. So they had good reason for the sober faces which they carried into the house that even-, ing.

When the chickens started down the path towards the pasture on the following morn, ing, as had been their custom every day for the past week, Lige with the shotgun was behind them. He dodged from tree to tree, and from fence post to fence post, keeping quiet when the' Dominick rooster found a snail, which it divided with a great deal of bluster and clicking among its favourites, or when the whole party paused to dust themselves in a sunny spot. On the whole, however, the march was kept up very diligently until the pasture was reached and crossed. At this point, King’s Creek; —swollen out of its usual bounds by rains and. melting snow—barred the way. The chickens walked to the edge of the water, and in five minutes were ranged in a line along its coarse, every one of them busy picking up from its banks flotsam and jetsam in the shape of insects-and nuts which the full stream brought with it. Lige got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the grass to a olump of pawpaw bushes not more than ten feet from the water, where he hid himself with the gnn adross his knees and watohed, A sprouting beech-nut floated down the stream within two feet of shore. The Dominick looked at it, stretched his neck, toward it as far as he could stretch, and then boldly waded out into the creek. He picked the - beech-nut out of the water as calmly as though it had been on dry land. One by one the others stepped into the stream after him, and presently the whole brood was wading breast deep against' the current. They were engaged in a mode of fishing - very common with poultry which is required to forage for itself; but it was new to Lige, and he looked at them with an amazsment which presently drifted into amusement. 4 1 wish Polly had come,’ he thought, 'this is at

good as a oirbus. ’ 4 Snowy,’ Polly’s favorite pullet; was soberly wading beside the Shanghai cockerel direotly opposite Lige’s bidding' place, and had just s wallo wed a dead minnow, when suddenly she went under the water. In a moment her head came into sight again and she began Boreaming in a high shrill voice which had something human in it. The other chickens dashed like mad things to the shore, while Lige gripped his gun :.n;l ran down to the water’s edge. The pullet was beating the water into a foam with her wings, trying to break away from Some invisible creature that had caught her by one leg and was slowly dragging her out to the deeper parts of the stream. Her whole body was under water now, but Bhe kept up the painful screaming until it ended with a gurgle, when her head went under for the second time. Then everything was: still. - The surface of the stream was smooth and unbroken, nothing on top: of the water giving evidence of the life and death struggle that Lige knew was going on beneath

What was it that had dragged the pullet down ? That was the mystery. Lige kicked off his boots, and was about to wade out to the; rescue when the thought struck him that his feet might need some shield Lorn a creature that could thus pull down a full grown chicken, and he drew oh the heavy boots again. The bottom of the creek.was slippery ; a short distance from the shore the current ran like a millraoe, and in his clumsy boots the boy had some difficulty in wading out to the place where poor ‘ Snowy ’ had disappeared. When he reached it, however, the bottom of the stream at that point was bare. No body was to be found within a yard of the spot. But farther out in the water, and lower down the stream, his right boot kicked against something soft. He stooped down, and plunged his hands under water. They touched the feathers of a chicken ; bat when he attempted to lift the bird it seemed anchored to the bottom. He slipped his hand along its. body down to the point where the weight appeared to be, and distinctly felt the smooth head and neck of some living snake-like creature. (To be continued.)