Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag Vol. 1

pathetic. The biddies get out every day or two, and fly away all over
the neighbourhood, like feathers when you shake a pillow. They cackle
and crow, and get up on sheds and fences, and trot down the streets, all
at once, and that poor fellow spins round after them like a distracted
top. One by one he gets them and comes lugging them back, upside down,
in the most undignified attitude, and shuts them up, and hammers away,
and thinks they are all safe, and sits down to rest, when a triumphant
crow from some neighbouring shed tells him that that rascally black
rooster is out again for another promenade. I'm not blood-thirsty; but I
really do long for Thanksgiving that my neighbour Henry may find rest
for the sole of his foot; for, not till his poultry are safely eaten
will he ever know where they are.

Another boy has a circus about once a week, and tries to break his neck
jumping through hoops, hanging to a rope by his heels, turning
somersaults in the air, and frightening his mother out of her wits by
his pranks. I suspect that he has been to see Leotard, and I admire his
energy, for he is never discouraged; and, after tumbling flat,
half-a-dozen times, he merely rubs his elbows and knees, and then up and