Stuyvesant: A Franconia Story

The window came down nearly to the floor, so that when it was open one could walk directly out. There was a sort of step, however, which it was necessary to go over.

Mrs. Henry had a little table at the window, and she was busy at her work. There was a basket on the floor by her side. Malleville was sitting upon the step. She had quite a number of green leaves in her lap, which she had gathered in the yard. She said that she was going to put them into a book and press them.

Just then she heard Phonny’s voice around a corner, calling to her.

“Malleville! Malleville!” said the voice, calling loudly.

Malleville hastily gathered up her leaves, and called out, “What, Phonny? I’m coming.”

Before she got ready to go, however, Phonny appeared upon the piazza.

“Malleville,” said he, “come and see our chickens.”

“Well,” said Malleville, “I will come.”

“And mother, I wish you would come out and see them, too,” said Phonny.

“I have seen them once,” said his mother, “only two or three days ago.”

“But, mother, they are a great deal larger now,” replied Phonny. “I wish you could come and see them. You don’t know how large they have grown.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Henry, “I will come.”

So she laid aside her work, and stepping out into the piazza, she followed Phonny and Malleville around the corner of the house. Phonny walked fast, with long strides, Malleville skipped along by his side, while Mrs. Henry came on after them at her leisure.

They all gathered round the coop, which had been made in a sunny corner of the yard. It was a very pretty coop indeed. It was formed by a box, turned bottom upward to form a shelter for the hen when she chose to retire to it, and a little yard with a paling around it made by bars, to prevent the chickens from straying away. Phonny said that there was a good, comfortable nest in under the box, and he was going to lift up the box and let Mrs. Henry see the nest, but Stuyvesant recommended to him not to do so, as it would frighten the hen.

There was an opening in the side of the box, which served as a door for the hen to go in and out at. At the time of Mrs. Henry’s visit, the hen was out in the yard walking about. She appeared to be a little anxious at seeing so unusual a company of visitors at her lodgings, and at first thought it probable that they might have come to take some of her chickens away. But when she found that they stood quietly by, and did not disturb her, she became quiet again, and began to scratch upon the ground to find something for the chickens to eat.

Seeing this, Phonny ran off to bring some food for them, and presently returned with a saucer full of what he called pudding. It consisted of meal and water stirred up together. He threw out some of this upon the ground within the yard, and the hen, calling the chickens to the place, scattered the pudding about with her bill for the chickens to eat.

The boys then wished to have Mrs. Henry go to the shop. She, accordingly, went with them. They opened the shop-door very carefully to keep Frink from getting out. When they were all safely in and the door was shut, they began to look about the room to find the squirrel. “There he is,” said Phonny, pointing to the beam over the shutter-window.

So saying he went to the place, and putting up his hand, took the squirrel and brought him to his mother.

“Why, how tame he is!” said Mrs. Henry.

“Yes,” said Phonny, “Stuyvesant and I tamed him. He runs all about the shop. And we have got a house for him to sleep in. Come and see his house.”

So saying, Phonny led his mother and Malleville to the back side of the shop, where, upon a shelf, there stood a small box, with a hole in the side of it, much like the one which had been made for the hen, only not so large.

“He goes in there to sleep,” said Phonny. “We always feed him in there too, so as to make him like the place.”

As Phonny said this, he put the squirrel down upon the beam before the door of his house.

“Now you will see him go in,” said he.

Frink crept into his hole, and then turning round within the box, he put his head out a little way, and after looking at Mrs. Henry a moment with one eye, he winked in a very cunning manner.

There was a small paper tacked up with little nails on the side of the squirrel’s house, near the door.

“What is this?” said Mrs. Henry.

“Oh! that’s his poetry,” said Phonny, “you must read it.”

So Mrs. Henry, standing up near, read aloud as follows: —

My name is Frink,
And unless you think,
To give me plenty to eat and drink,
You’ll find me running away
Some day;
I shall tip you a wink,
Then slyly slink,
Out through some secret cranny or chink,
And hie for the woods, away,
Away.

Mrs. Henry laughed heartily at this production. She asked who wrote it.

“Why, we found it here one morning,” said Phonny. “Stuyvesant says that he thinks Beechnut wrote it.”

“But Beechnut,” added Malleville, “says that he believes that Frink wrote it himself.”

“Oh no,” said Stuyvesant, “he did not say exactly that.”

“What did he say?” asked Mrs. Henry.

“Why, he said,” replied Stuyvesant, “that as there was a pen and ink in the shop, and hammer and nails, and as the paper was found nailed up early one morning, when nobody had slept in the shop the night before but Frink, if it did not turn out that Frink himself wrote the lines, he should never believe in any squirrel’s writing poetry as long as he lived.”

Mrs. Henry laughed at this, and she then began to look about the shop to see the tools and the arrangements which had been made by the boys for their work.

She found the premises in excellent order. The floor was neat, the tools were all in their proper places, and every thing seemed well arranged.

“I suppose the tools are dull, however,” said Mrs. Henry, “as boys’ tools generally are.”

“No,” said Phonny, “they are all sharp. We have sharpened them every one.”

“How did you do it?” asked Mrs. Henry.

“Why, we turned the grindstone for Beechnut while he ground his axes, and then he held our tools for us to sharpen them. We could not hold them ourselves very well.”

“We are going to keep them sharp,” continued Phonny, – “as sharp as razors. Won’t we, Stivy?”

“We are going to try it,” said Stuyvesant.

Phonny took up the plane to show his mother how sharp it was.

“Yes,” said she; “I like that tool too, very much – it is so safe.”