"WOODLAWN," JENKINTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA.
DEAR YOUNG FOLKS,--You have read so often in your charming paper of
the wonderful intelligence and strange fancies of animals that I am
tempted to write you of a "Happy Family" in which we are all
greatly interested.
About four weeks ago I went down to the stable and found a mother
cat and three little ones on a bed of straw in a half-hogshead. A
few days later another cat had three snowy little kittens in the
same place. They were the prettiest creatures you ever saw, and the
happy mammas seemed to enjoy my admiration of their babies.
The next morning, on visiting my pets, the cats were away, and to
my astonishment I found a speckled hen sitting on four of the
kittens. I drove her off, but she went most unwillingly. The next
day she was there again, and the next, but two of the kittens had
been carried out on the floor, and as I was afraid the cats would
hide them, I removed the two families, putting them on some straw
behind their former home. In a few moments the hen found them, and
has never left them day or night except for her food. The little
ones are growing finely; they creep under and around her, play with
her feathers, and do the funniest things imaginable, all of which I
am sure she enjoys.
It is a strange and beautiful sight--the two mothers, the six
babies, and the demure old hen making herself as large as possible,
often spreading her wings to accommodate one of the old cats.
A friend said to me, "I wish you would write this out for
publication, but I fear you will not be believed; I should have
doubted the story myself." So I have written a mere outline of the
pretty scenes enacted down in the stable entry of my country house;
no day has repeated itself, and as I write, the foster-mother,
nurse, friend of the family, or whatever she may be called, is
faithfully brooding over her charge, crooning low, as if to a brood
of little sleepy chicks.
I wonder how all this will end? When the children go out into the
world to seek their fortunes, will their devoted nurse stay with
the "old folks"? I know not. But this I know: that the fate of
barn-yard fowls shall not be hers. She shall be marked with our
approval, and shall live out all her days in her own way, and
according to her "own sweet will."
Hoping I have won your interest in my little family, I am very
truly yours,