1 The slim little chick was greyish brown with dark markings, and it was the most alive little spark of a creature in seven kingdoms at that moment.
2 And slowly, softly, with sure gentle fingers, he felt among the old bird's feathers and drew out a faintly-peeping chick in his closed hand.
3 Without knowing, he came quickly towards her and crouched beside her again, taking the chick from her hands, because she was afraid of the hen, and putting it back in the coop.
4 I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.
5 The pheasant chicks were running lightly abroad, light as insects, from the coops where the fellow hens clucked anxiously.
6 Even the chicks she hardly saw.
7 The chicks had nearly all gone under the mother-hens, only one or two last adventurous ones still dibbed about in the dryness under the straw roof shelter.
8 There he crouched in silence, looking carefully at everything, then carefully shutting the hens and chicks up safe against the night.
9 But there he was again, in his shirt-sleeves, stooping, letting the hens out of the coops, among the chicks that were now growing a little gawky, but were much more trim than hen-chickens.
10 This year it was to be a plantation of sun flowers, the seeds of which cheerful land aspiring plant were to feed Aunt Cockle-top and her family of chicks.