and old Nell almost stepped into the nest. I took all the eggs,
because a pheasant will not come back to the nest after she has been
frightened away. She finds another place and makes a new nest. She
won't go back to the old one."

"Well," said Bobby, "what are you going to do with the eggs?"

"Oh," said Joe, "I'm going to put them under that little brown bantam
hen that wants to set, and let her hatch them."

So Bobby and Betty went with Joe, and watched him while he made a
comfortable nest in an old box in the shop loft. Then he put the seven
eggs in the nest carefully, and got the little bantam hen and put her
in, too. She clucked and scolded, and when Joe put her in the box she
stood up and moved the eggs round with her feet, to arrange them as
she wished before she would settle down; but when Bobby and Betty
peeped in, a little later, she was all comfortable for her long wait
of three weeks. Joe put grain and water near by, and Bobby and Betty
peeped in almost every day.

One day when the children went near the nest, they heard little
peeping sounds, and ran to tell Joe. He came and lifted up the little
bantam hen, although she scolded and pecked at him; and in the nest
Bobby and Betty saw six little pheasant chicks and one egg that did
not hatch. The pheasant chicks were little brown downy things, and Joe
took hen, chicks, nest and all, and made a little coop for them under
the orchard trees. The little chicks were very lively and very
shy--not like hen chicks; they loved to run away and hide in the
grass, and the children could hardly find them at all when they looked
for them. Mother Bantam would cluck and run back and forth in the coop