This idea delighted Winnie, and pleased Merton almost as much as hunting rabbits.  “Now,” I resumed, “we will go to the house and get what we need for the work.”

“Winifred,” I said to my wife, “can you let Winnie have a small pail of hot water and some old rags?”

“What are you up to now?”

“You know all about cleaning house; we are going to clean barn, and make a place for Winnie’s chickens.  There is a window in their future bedroom—­roost-room I suppose I should call it—­that looks as if it had never been washed, and to get off the dust of years will be Winnie’s task, while Merton, Bobsey, and I create an interior that should satisfy a knowing hen.  We’ll make nests, too, children, that will suggest to the biddies that they should proceed at once to business.”

“But where are the chickens to come from?” my wife asked, as she gave the pan to Merton to carry for his sister.

“Oh, John Jones will put me in the way of getting them soon;” and we started out to our morning’s work.  Mousie looked after us wistfully, but her mother soon found light tasks for her, and she too felt that she was helping.  “Remember, Mousie,” I said, in parting, “that I have three helpers, and surely mamma needs one;” and she was content.

Merton at first was for pitching all the old corn-stalks out into the yard, but I said:  “That won’t do.  We shall need a cow as well as chickens, and these stalks must be kept dry for her bedding.  We’ll pile them up in the inner empty stall.  You can help at that, Bobsey;” and we set to work.

Under Winnie’s quick hands more and more light came through the window.  With a fork I lifted and shook up the stalks, and the boys carried them to the empty stall.  At last we came to rubbish that was so damp and decayed that it would be of no service indoors, so we placed it on a barrow and I wheeled it out to one corner of the yard.  At last we came down to a hard earth floor, and with a hoe this was cleared and made smooth.

“Merton,” I said, “I saw an old broom upstairs.  Run and get it, and we’ll brush down the cobwebs and sweep out, and then we shall be ready to see about the partition.”

CHAPTER XVII

GOOD BARGAINS IN MAPLE SUGAR

By eleven o’clock we had all the basement cleaned except the one cow-stall that was filled to the ceiling with litter; and Winnie had washed the windows.  Then John Jones’s lank figure darkened the doorway, and he cried, “Hello, neighbor, what ye drivin’ at?”

“Look around and see, and then tell us where to get a lot of chickens.”

“Well, I declare!  How you’ve slicked things up!  You’re not goin’ to scrub the dirt floor, are you?  Well, well, this looks like business—­ just the place for chickens.  Wonder old man Jamison didn’t keep ’em here; but he didn’t care for fowls.  Now I think of it, there’s to be a vandoo the first of the week, and there was a lot o’ chickens printed on the poster.”