“I’m skeered of the old hen,” objected Jimmy.  “Is she much of a pecker?”

“Naw, she ain’t a-goin’ to hurt you,” was the encouraging reply.  “Git up an’ crawl th’oo; I’ll help you.”

Billy, having overcome his scruples, now entered into the undertaking with great zest.

Jimmy climbed the chicken ladder, kicked his chubby legs through the aperture, hung suspended on his fat little middle for an instant, and finally, with much panting and tugging, wriggled his plump, round body into the hen-house.  He walked over where a lonesome looking hen was sitting patiently on a nest.  He put out a cautious hand and the hen promptly gave it a vicious peck.

“Billy,” he called angrily, “you got to come in here and hold this old chicken; she’s ’bout the terriblest pecker they is.”

Billy stuck his head in the little square hole.  “Go at her from behind,” he suggested; “put yo’ hand under her easy like, an’ don’ let her know what you’s up to.”

Jimmy tried to follow these instructions, but received another peck for his pains.  He promptly mutinied.

“If you want any eggs,” he declared, scowling at the face framed in the aperture, “you can come get ’em yourself.  I done monkeyed with this chicken all I’m going to.”

So Billy climbed up and easily got his lean little body through the opening.  He dexterously caught the hen by the nape of the neck, as he had seen Aunt Cindy do, while Jimmy reached for the eggs.

“If we ain’t done lef’ my cap outside on the groun’,” said Billy.  “What we goin’ to put the eggs in?”

“Well, that’s just like you, Billy, you all time got to leave your cap on the ground.  I’ll put ’em in my blouse till you get outside and then I’ll hand ’em to you.  How many you going to take?”

“We might just as well git ’em all now,” said Billy.  “Aunt Cindy say they’s some kinder hens won’t lay no chickens ’t all if folks put they hands in they nests an’ this here hen look like to me she’s one of them kind, so the rester the egg’ll jest be waste, any how, ‘cause you done put yo’ han’s in her nes’, an’ a dominicker ain’t a-goin’ to stan’ no projeckin’ with her eggs.  Hurry up.”

Jimmy carefully distributed the eggs inside his blouse, and Billy once more crawled through the hole and stood on the outside waiting, cap in hand, to receive them.

But the patient hen had at last raised her voice in angry protest and set up a furious cackling, which so frightened the little boy on the inside that he was panic-stricken.  He caught hold of a low roost pole, swung himself up and, wholly unmindful of his blouse full of eggs, pushed his lower limbs through the hole and stuck fast.  A pair of chubby, sturdy legs, down which were slowly trickling little yellow rivulets, and half of a plump, round body were all that would go through.

“Pull!” yelled the owner of the short fat legs.  “I’m stuck and can’t go no furder.  Pull me th’oo, Billy.”