Nelly's Visit, or, the Old House on the Hill

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: house is much greater than we ever had in the old one. Then you did live in a log-house once ? Yes, we lived in it when Cousin Elinor was here. That was before brother Eobert married, and went away from us to live. There it is now, among those trees, ? don't you see it to the left ? We call it the old...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: house is much greater than we ever had in the old one. Then you did live in a log-house once ? Yes, we lived in it when Cousin Elinor was here. That was before brother Eobert married, and went away from us to live. There it is now, among those trees, ? don't you see it to the left ? We call it the old house on the hill, to distinguish it from another building father owns down by the turn of the road. Here chick, chick; ? here chick, chick, chick They had reached the barn-yard where most of the fowls were congregated; and now, at Philip's call, they came flocking around him to eat the corn he threw among them in great handfuls. They were of several kinds, ? Black Spanish, Shanghae, game, and what is called the common barn-door fowl. Nelly looked on with interest as Philip pointed out and described the peculiarities of each breed. But after all, said he, the common hen is the best, I heard father telling a neighbor the other day. He says they can stand more hardships, while they lay as many if not more eggs than the best of the fancy kinds. Come, let us go up in the loft and get the eggs for mother. I climb up every day and gather them. The fowls are so cunning they will not choose their nests in the hen-house, but steal them among the hay, in hopes, I suppose, that no one will detect them. Nelly followed him to the barn, and then ensued an amusing hunt in the hayloft. Philip was more experienced than his companion, and soon had filledhis cap with eggs, but Nelly, though she dived into many an obscure corner, in the search, did little more than get her curly head stuck full of wisps of straw. She discovered at last, however, something that surprised even Philip, and that was, a hen setting regularly on a dozen eggs. I cannot tell how she has been here...