ALARMING DEMONSTRATIONS.
My premises were literally besieged with visitors, and my family
attendants were worn out with answering the door-bell summons, from
morning till night.
"Is Mr. B---- at home? Can we see his Cochin-Chinas? Can we look at Mr.
B----'s fowls? Might we take a look at the chickens?" were the questions
from sun to sun again, almost; and I was absolutely compelled, in
self-defence, to send the fowls away from home, for a while, for the
sake of relief from the continual annoyances to which, in consequence of
having them in my yard, I was subjected.
Fifteen, twenty, often forty callers in a single day, would come to see
my "magnificent" Cochin-China fowls. But I sent them off, and then "the
people" cried for them!
"Who's dead?" queried a stranger, passing my door one day, and observing
the carriages and vehicles standing in a line along the front of my
garden-fence.
"Nobody, I guess," said another; "that's where the _Cochin-Chinas_ are
kept."
"The what?"
"The Cochin-Chinas."
"What's them?"
"Don't you know?"
"No; never heard of 'em, afore."
"Never heard of Burnham's Cochin-Chinas?"
"Never! What are they?"
"Well, I reckon you ha'n't lived in these 'ere parts long, my friend,"
continued the other; "and you'd better step in and look at 'em."
In came the stranger, and after examining the fowls he returned.
"How do you like 'em?" asked the man who had already seen them, and was
waiting for his friend outside.
"They're _ronchers_, that's a fact!" exclaimed the gratified stranger.
And this was the universal opinion.
Nobody had ever seen such fowls (_I_ had seen a good many better
ones!)--nobody had ever beheld any so large, so heavy, so fine. And
every one who came to look at them purchased or engaged either eggs or
chickens from these "extraordinary" and "never-to-be-too-much-lauded"
royal Cochin-China fowls!
For my first broods of chickens (at three and four months old) I readily
obtained twenty-five dollars a pair; and every one of them went off
"like hot cakes" at this figure. It was too low for them, altogether;
and I had occasion to regret, subsequently, that I did not charge fifty
dollars a pair;--a price which I might just as easily then have obtained
as if I had charged but one dollar a pair, as events proved to my
satisfaction.
But everything connected with this fever could not well be learned at
once. I was not a very dull scholar, and I progressed gradually. One
year after the receipt of my Cochins, I got my own price for them, ask
what I might. I sold a good many pairs at one hundred dollars the
couple; and, oftentimes, I received this sum for a trio of them.
Things begun to look up with me. I had got a very handsome-looking stock
on hand, at last; and when my numerous customers came to see me, they
were surprised (and so was _I_) to meet with such "noble" samples of
domestic fowls. "Magnificent!" "Astonishing!" cried everybody.
A splendid open carriage halted before my door, one day, and there
alighted from it a fine, portly-looking man, whom I had never seen
before, and whose name I did not then learn; who, leaving an
elegantly-dressed lady behind in the vehicle, called for me.
I saw and recognized the _carriage_, however, as one of Niles'; and I
was satisfied that it came from the Tremont House. As soon as the
gentleman spoke, I was also satisfied, from his manner of speech, that
he was a Southerner. He was polite and frank, apparently. I invited him
in, and he went to look at my fowls; that being the object, he said, of
his visit.
He examined them all, and said, quietly:
"I'd like to get half a dozen of these, if they didn't come too high;
but I understand you fanciers have got the price up. I used to buy these
chickens for a dollar apiece. _Now_, they say, you're asking five
dollars each for them."
I showed him my stock,--the "_pure_-bred" ones,--and informed him at
once that I had not sold any of _my_ chickens, latterly, at less than
_forty_ dollars a pair.
He was astounded. He didn't want any--much: that is, he wasn't
particular. He could buy them for five dollars; shouldn't pay that,
_no_how; wanted them for his boy; would come again, and see about it,
&c. &c.
A five-year-old stag mounted the low fence at this moment, and sent
forth an electrifying crow, such as would (at that period) have taken a
novice "right out of his boots;" and a beautiful eight-pound pullet
showed herself beside him at the same time. The stranger turned round,
and said:
"There! What is your price for such a pair as that, for instance?"
"Not for sale, sir."
"But you _will_ sell them, I s'pose?"
"No, sir. I have younger ones to dispose of; but _that_ pair are my
models. I can't sell _them_."
The gentleman's eye was exactly filled with this pair of chickens.
"What will you _take_ for those two fowls?"
"One hundred dollars, sir," I replied.
"I guess you will--when you can get it," he added.--"Name your lowest
price, now, for those two. I want _good_ ones, if any."
"I prefer to keep them, rather than to part with them at _any_ price," I
insisted. "If, however, a gentleman like yourself, who evidently knows
what good fowls are, desires to procure the choicest specimens in the
country, why, I confess to you that those are the persons into whose
hands I prefer that my best stock should fall. But I will show you some
at a lower figure," I continued, driving this pair from the fence.
"Don't you! Don't drive 'em away!" said the gentleman;--"let's see.
That's the cock?"
"Yes, sir."
"And this is the hen?"
"Yes."
"One _hundred_ dollars! You don't _mean_ this, of course," he persisted.
"No, I mean that I would rather keep them, sir."
"Well--I'll----_take them_," said the stranger. "It's cruel. But, I'll
take them;" and he paid me five twenty-dollar gold pieces down on the
spot, for two ten-months-old chickens, from my "splendid" Royal
Cochin-China fowls.
He had a tender spot _somewhere_, that I had hit, during the
conversation, I presume. He took the two chickens into his carriage, and
I have never seen or heard from him from that day to this. I trust,
however, if "these few lines" should ever meet his eye, that his poultry
turned out well, and that he himself is in good health and spirits!
I called this gallant young cock "Frank Pierce," in honor of my valiant
friend now of the White House, at Washington. It will be seen that I
thus sold Frank for fifty dollars; a sum which the majority of the
people of this country have since most emphatically determined was _a
good deal more than he ever was worth_!