Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/195

 Swift, with the whole family on board. Of course Mr. Mistletoe had a match, and hastened to give a light to such a smart-looking hen. Blythe, sitting in the back of the car, was greatly interested. She watched the hen carefully, and then began to sing her little ditty. "Chickens, chickens, in the field," she sang.

The gay hen was just tossing away the match with a debonair gesture. She was ready to step on the gas and go scooting off down the road to another party in Locust Valley. Suddenly she realized how tired she was of a roadhouse life. When she heard Blythe's song she thought with sadness of the chickens running wild all over the fields, not wearing rubbers, eating wrong food, quarrelling and using bad words, growing up rowdy and tough.

She threw away the cigarette, and drove home fast, very fast. She leaped out of the smart roadster and called all the chickens home from the field, with the old bedtime call that they still remembered. They were very big now, but once more she took them all under her wings as best she could, though they kicked and skirmished so that she was awake most of the night.

The next day she cleaned out the rumble seat,