Mrs. Shields straightened up, listened a second, looked over the hedge. What she saw caused her to drop the trowel and fly around to the alley, bursting through the tumbledown gate into the parsonage grounds without ceremony. “Wilbur! _Wilbur!_ Don’t do that! Don’t grab the chickies, dearie! No, no! Mustn’t touch!” “Make chicky go!” shouted Wilbur happily, squeezing a limp bit of brown velvet between his sturdy little hands. The coop was upset; he danced with joyful impatience among splintered slats and chickens. “Chicky _go_!” He threw it down and kicked it. “_Go!_” The chicken made a difficult movement, then settled down motionless with filming eyes. “There now, see what you done! You’ve broke the chicky, Wilbur. Poor chicky, now it won’t ever go any more!” said Mrs. Shields, instinctively adapting her words to the child’s comprehension. “No, _no_, Wilbur mustn’t play with chickies!” “Chicky go!” screamed Wilbur. He was too quick for her; the chicken that he aimed a lusty kick at escaped, but losing his balance and recovering, he came down vigorously with his whole weight on another. “_Make_ chicky go!” All at once with dynamic suddenness, Mrs. Shield’s aspect underwent an appalling transformation. Red spots flamed through the rouge on her meagre cheeks; her eyes ceased to languish; they glared balefully. In a twinkle she became years older, a formidable virago, a hag! She darted out a tentacle of an arm, and whirled Wilbur away from his pastime with a couple of stinging slaps. “You let them chickens alone, young one, you hear me? You won’t, won’t you? I’ll learn you!” Wilbur raised a long howl of protest, exerting fists and feet impotently; Luella appeared at the kitchen door alarmed and inquiring, and after one look, charged to the rescue. “Wha’ you doin’ t’ that chile? Don’t you dare tech that chile!” Mrs. Shields hurled at her an epithet foreign to the vocabularies of real refined homes; the mulatto woman, in a fury, screeched a retort as flavoursome; linguistically it was a battle of giants. Wilbur bawled between them; what chickens survived scattered, peeping wildly, the conflict assailed the very vault of heaven. At that pitch it actually brought Mrs. Gowdy from the piano and “Hark, the herald angels sing”; the rest of the children arrived in a scurry; the postman halted on his round, petrified; a stray delivery boy, lingering, impartially contributed his mite, “Yah-de-_dah_! Yee-i! Yee-i!” he yelped ecstatically, and drifted on, a ship that passed in the night. Wilbur fled to his mother, bellowing more in fright and anger than pain; she received him with bewildered tenderness. “What is it? What has happened? Tell Mother where it hurts, darling!” She gazed round distractedly, seeking to interpret the blubbering and unintelligible references to _ady_ and _chicky_. “What _is_ he trying to say? Luella----?”