Lyd had wrapped a dish-towel about her, and felt very comfortable and well-dressed; while Peg had come just as she was, and they both rolled about on the sled in a very dangerous fashion.

The late chicken held on with his claws to the curl of the runner, and flapped his wings and squawked every time the sled plunged a little in the snow.  Minx rode horseback as before, while Spot went afoot, jumping and barking, and snapping up a mouthful of snow every few minutes.

But not one of them knew where they were going, or what they were going to do.  They meant to get Scrubby a tree somehow, and that was all they knew about it.

At last, Peg said (Peg was a very sensible baby, if she was raveled out): 

“What are we going to do, anyhow?”

“Why, we’re going to get a tree for Scrubby,” they all answered.

“Well, what kind of a tree?—­and where?”

That was a poser.  None of them had thought so far as that.  At last, Minx said: 

“Why, any kind—­somewhere.”

“There are plenty of trees in France,” said Francaise.

“Then that’s the place for us to go,” said Jumping Jack; and at once they raced off to the end of the garden, on their way to France.

“This aint the way, after all,” Minx said, when they got to the fence.  “The world comes to an end just over there.  I got up on the fence one day, and there was nothing beyond but a great, deep hole.”

“There’s no use going off this other way,” Spot put in, “for there’s nothing over there but a big lot of water with a mill standing by it.  I was over there one day.”

“Then that is our way,” said the French lady, decisively.  “That is the ocean.  I know they brought me across the ocean, and I was awfully sick all the way.”

That last rather discouraged them, for nobody wanted to get awfully sick if there was any other way to find Scrubby’s tree; so they concluded not to go to France.

“Well, let’s go somewhere, for I’m getting cold,” peeped the chicken; and then there was a great discussion.  At last, Spot said: 

“We are a stupid lot!  There’s that sparrow comes about the door every day—­he could tell us all about trees in a minute if we could find him.”

Minx knew where the sparrow kept himself, for she always watched him with an eye to business.

“But,” she said, “some of the rest of you will have to talk to him, for he’ll never let me come near him.”

So then the chicken called to the sparrow, and the sparrow answered.  The matter was explained to him, and the bird fluttered down among them as much excited as anybody.

“It’s for little Scrubby, eh?” he said.  “What in the world does she want a tree for?  I know.  It’s because she is half bird herself—­bless her heart!—­and she likes trees just like any other bird.  And don’t she come to the door every morning and give me crumbs and talk to me so friendly?  Of course, I’ll help find a tree for her.”