he was smarter'n me and put 'em back in his
sack and walked off."

Grandmother looked up in alarm and spoke
to grandfather. "Josiah, you don't suppose
Krajiek would let them poor creatures eat
prairie-dogs, do you?"

"You had better go over and see our
neighbors tomorrow, Emmaline," he replied
gravely.

Fuchs put in a cheerful word and said prairie-
dogs were clean beasts and ought to be good
for food, but their family connections were
against them. I asked what he meant, and he
grinned and said they belonged to the rat
family.

When I went downstairs in the morning, I
found grandmother and Jake packing a ham-
per basket in the kitchen.

"Now, Jake," grandmother was saying, "if
you can find that old rooster that got his comb
froze, just give his neck a twist, and we'll take
him along. There's no good reason why Mrs.
Shimerda couldn't have got hens from her
neighbors last fall and had a henhouse going
by now. I reckon she was confused and didn't
know where to begin. I've come strange to a
new country myself, but I never forgot hens

[[81]]

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