HOW THE CURLS SAVED SPECKLES.
When Barbara came to the farm boarding-house the chickens all looked alike —just a lot of lively little yellow puffballs; but one day she discovered that one of them looked very different from the others. The little wings that were peeping out amongst the yellow down were grown, speckled with gold, and from that moment Barbara chose "Speckles" for her very own. The hired man had often told her that her short bobbing curls were " brown speckled with gold," and she knew Speckles must belong to her. Like all the other farmyard chickens, Speckles grew from a yellow puffball into a very long-legged hen, but she never grew too big for Barbara to pick her up and carry her on some of their long walks together. She always thought Speckles's ''very thin legs" must get more tired than her short, fat ones, in toiling up the steep hill.
. The summer was drawing to a close, and, like all chickens that grew up in boarding-house yards, Speckles's brothers and sisters each found the way in turn to the board-ing-house table, until Speckles was the only ona left.
"We won't take her unless we have to," said the kind cook, "she and the little girl are such friends." But one day she had to. Guests arrived, and there must be chickenpie!
' 'You know Jones,'' were the orders, "bring the brown one speckled with gold—she's the only small one left."
But that day the boarding-house pie was not as good as it sometimes was, and the cook knew why, when, after dinner, she saw Speckles following Barbara about as faithfully as ever. And when Jones was scolded for his mistake, this was his excuse:
"Well, you see," he explained, "you said there was only one brown one, speckled with gold, and when I got out there were two of that kind, and I couldn't decide which would make the best pot-pie, so I decided on one of last year's —just to be safe\" So Barbara's golden-brown curls saved Speckles from a chicken-pie dinner.
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Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 23 August 1911, Page 3
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345HOW THE CURLS SAVED SPECKLES. Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 23 August 1911, Page 3
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