and we again started on a trot. Finally as we struck another rock, the horse bolted and between his snorts we thought we heard a fluttering. I finally got him stopped and I put my arm around Nettie before I thought to see if her cloak was in the wheel, but it wasn’t. Again I went over the harness and felt to see if the crooper was all right. We couldn’t account for it; the only evidence we had was that the horse never started until we ran over a rock or some rough object. So we started again and a few yards when we struck a chuck hole away went the horse and I hung onto the lines; then we discovered what we had done and it was amusing, as chickens always had queered me. Father had compelled me some weeks before to clip my game chickens’ wings so they couldn’t roost on the back of the buggy seat. In my joy at leaving the barn I had forgotten that my chickens did roost on the hind axle of the buggy, and as we drove out we took the hen roost also, so that naturally when we went over a rock or rough place with the hind wheel, we dislodged all or most of the chickens and they would catch by their necks and flutter back on the axle; thus they frightened the horse
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THE COUNTRY BOY
