CHAPTER IV
TENDERFOOT SCOUTS OF SOLOMON’S SEAL TROOP
Having given the setting hen enough feed to last a week, Janet went to the pig pen. She never leaned heavily on the fence, now, but she shoved the pan of food under the fence where one of the porkers had rooted a hole. After watching them fight and grunt madly for the mush, she laughingly turned and went to have one more look at the expectant mother-hen.
She was so perturbed at finding the eggs uncovered and the hen out in the yard gossiping with the other fowl, that she ran quickly to the house.
“Jimmy! Jimmy! Where are you?” she called excitedly.
“On the side-porch writing a letter for catalogues,” came the answer.
Janet ran out there and exclaimed: “Jimmy, that old setting-hen got up to have breakfast and she never went back to her business of hatching those eggs. What will happen, now?”
“Hens must eat and drink and exercise, you know, but they seldom remain off the eggs for any length of time. How long do you think she was away from the nest?”
“She was still out in the chicken-yard when I came back, just now. I should say she’s been off for twenty minutes, at least.”
“You had better go there and see if the eggs are chilled. Just barely touch them, but do not take them up in your hands,” advised Mrs. James.
“Another thing, Jimmy,” added Janet, sadly. “There wasn’t an egg in either of the other nests. I suppose the hens wouldn’t lay because I forgot their supper.”
Natalie was interested in this case of retribution.
“Will hens lay better the more you feed them, Jimmy?” asked she.
Mrs. James laughed. “I know they must be fed regularly for best results in egg-laying. They are much like other creatures—they need food at certain intervals. But I have heard that they will lay better if they do not have too large a range to run in.”
“Then I’ll build a smaller yard for them,” declared Janet, emphatically. “They must lay eggs or I’ll not be able to pay the corn and feed bills.”
“I’ll go with you, Jan, and figure out how big to have the new yard,” suggested Natalie.
Finding that the setting-hen still neglected her duty to the water-glass eggs, the two girls decided to use compulsion. They tried to lay hands on the wise old hen but she adroitly avoided arrest. Then ensued a chase that so frightened the other chickens that they screeched fearfully and fluttered about in every direction.
Finally the rooster found his way in at the small opening whence the old hen had come out, and immediately after him ran all the hens and young chicks. Janet had left the door of the coop open when Natalie and she went in to attend to the setting hen, and now the fowl all escaped that way into the barnyard.
“Oh, let them go! The old things!” snapped Natalie, as she counted the scratches and streaks of dirt on hands and dress.
“We’ll hurry and move this chicken-fence in until we think the yard is the right size,” suggested Janet, finding the old fence was shaky.
“No, don’t waste time on this old rickety fence, Janet. We’ll measure the ground and order chicken wire from Four Corners. That will make a durable fence and be easier to tack on to the posts than all this slat-affair,” advised Natalie.
Janet agreed with her so they took a ball of string to find out the length of wire they must order. They had quite forgotten the setting-hen until she came clucking nonchalantly up to the door of the coop.
“Oh, mercy! Nat, that hen has been off those eggs fully an hour, by this time,” cried Janet, anxiously watching the creature climb back and settle down upon the eggs.
An angry shout, sounding from the direction of the garden, made the girls look over that way. There was Rachel shaking her gingham apron wildly and Mrs. James waving her arms like a windmill, while both women were crying: “Shoo! Shoo! S-s-s-s-h-hoo!”
With dismay expressed upon her face, Natalie started to run to succor her precious vegetables; Janet followed closely in her tracks. The hens had had time enough to reach the tempting greens, however, and several shoots of lettuce were nipped off, while a row of young tender beet-tops was gone.
“Oh, oh! You miserable birds! I’ll wring your necks and enjoy eating you, after this!” screamed Natalie, as soon as she saw the damage done to her garden-truck.
“If the exasperating old beasts won’t lay enough eggs to pay back for this stealing, you shall have them to eat, and with pleasure, Nat!” declared Janet, angrily stoning the cackling hens.
Rachel stood wondering over the information she had just heard, then she said to Janet: “Ain’t dem hens done laid no eggs yet?”
“No they haven’t, Rachel. And my bookkeeping is all on the debit side. If it keeps on without any credits to jot down, I’ll never have a cent for candy, or anything!” complained Janet.
“Miss James must be right. Dem hens get too much freedom. Now we’ll lock ’em up in a coop and see what we shall see!”
So the four amateurs drove the fowl by devious ways, back to the chicken-yard, and Rachel closed their exit to the run by sliding a board in front of the opening.
“Let ’em sit down and think about it, honey, an’ mebbe they’ll lay some eggs.”
On the way back to the house Janet said: “How much are fresh eggs, Jimmy?”
“I really do not remember, but I’ll look at Tompkins’ bill when we reach the house,” replied Mrs. James.
“Eggs fresh from the nest are worth more than store-eggs, aren’t they?” continued Janet.
“Oh, yes, if they are guaranteed strictly fresh eggs.”
“Well, I won’t charge a cent more than the store does, because I’m using the barn and other things, you know,” said Janet.
“Other things mean lettuce and beet-tops, I s’pose,” laughed Natalie.
That day two letters went from Four Corners post office to addresses in New York, requesting that catalogues be mailed at once. The one of garden seeds was to be sent to Natalie Averill, and the one about fowl, pigs, and other stock was to be sent to Janet Wardell.
When Rachel heard that Natalie was planning to buy more seeds and plant them in an additional garden which she wished to have ploughed up, she said sarcastically:
“Honey, you’se is too easy in believein’ all dat talk in dem cat-logs. Nobuddy ever saw a cabbige grown as big as a house, ner did any beets ever raise up higher’n a man’s head. If wegetables growed like dem cat-logs say dey do, farmers’d have to harwest garden truck wid timber derricks.” The loud haw-haw that ended this comment made the others join in the laugh.
“I usta say dem comic pages in our Sundy papers was the bigges’ lies I ever saw, cus they egssaderate so bad, but dese farmin’ cat-logs kin beat comic papers all holler.” Rachel turned back to her kitchen work after unburdening her soul of the way seed-dealers misled the public.
Solomon’s Seal Scouts called at the house that afternoon, and the hostesses as well as the guests had a good time. The object of the visit was to invite the two girls at the house to attend a council meeting at camp the next day.
“Oh I hope the other girls will be here in time to go! We’re expecting them any time, now, you know,” exclaimed Natalie.
“We can have the council in the afternoon instead of in the morning, if you think they may arrive in time to attend,” said Miss Mason.
“Oh, yes! That will give them the whole morning to get here. I’m sure they’ll be crazy to visit the camp and see everything,” returned Natalie, eagerly.
“Say!” now Janet said impressively. Every one looked at her and waited for some surprise to be forthcoming. “When Ames drives past to the Corners for the evening’s mail, we’ll send word to the three village girls to be sure and come to the house to-morrow afternoon to go with us to the council!”
As is told at length in the book preceding this one, how the village scouts hailed the invitation to attend council, and how the three city girls arrived in time to not only receive a warm welcome at Green Hill Farm, but also to visit the woodland camp the same afternoon, we will not repeat the narrative here.
But one thing the girls of Patrol Number Two decided to do after they had witnessed the scouts of Patrol Number One go through their “setting up exercises,” demonstrate for the benefit of the visitors how they could make wildwood beds, cook without metal pots or pans, make fire with two sticks, and read the secret signs of the woods in stones, twigs, grass and trees, and that was that no time was to be lost if the new scouts wished to catch up with their more experienced scout-sisters.
Rachel had had ample time that afternoon to prepare a tempting supper for the village girls, and when Mrs. James found the table had been set out on the side-porch she smiled with appreciation. During the supper the enthusiastic scouts talked of nothing else but the valuable knowledge Patrol Number One had acquired.
“It means, girls, that we each must devote plenty of our spare time to the studying of our handbook, ‘Scouting for Girls,’ for there we shall find just what Miss Mason’s scouts found,” said Mrs. James.