After we had eaten the egg--and both Isobel and I agreed that it was
really a superior egg--we went down cellar and looked at Spotty. I
should say she was a very intelligent-looking hen, but homely. There was
nothing flashy about her. She was the kind of hen a man might enter
in the Sweepstakes class, and not get a prize, and then enter in the
Consolation class and not get a prize, and then enter for the Booby
prize and still be outclassed, and then enter in the Plain Old Barnyard
Fowl class and not get within ten miles of a prize, and then be taken
to the butcher as a Boarding House Broiler, and be refused on account of
age, tough looks, and emaciation.
She was no pampered darling of the hen house, but a plain old
Survival-of-the-Fittest Squawker; the kind of hen that along about the
first of May begins clucking in a vexed tone of voice, flies over the
top of a two-story bam, and wanders off somewhere into the tall grass
back of the cow pasture, to appear some weeks later with twelve chicks
of twelve assorted patterns, ranging from Shanghai-bantam to plain
yellow nondescript. She was a good, durable hen of the old school, with
a wary, startled eye, an extra loud squawk, and a brain the size of a
grain of salt.
Spotty was the sort of hen that could go right along day after day
without steam heat or elevators in her coop and manage to make a living.
As soon as I saw her, my heart swelled with pride, for I knew I had
secured a very rare variety of hen. Since every man that can tell a
chicken from an ostrich--and some that can't--has become a chicken
fancier, the aristocratic, raised-by-hand, pedigree fowl has become as
common as dirt, and it is indeed difficult to secure a genuine mongrel
hen. I was elated. As nearly as I could judge by first appearances, I
was the owner of one of the most mongrel hens that ever laid a plain,
omelette-quality egg.
When I had made a coop by nailing a few slats across the front of a soap
box, and had nailed Spotty in, I took the coop under my arm and went
into the back yard. Mr. Millington was there, and Mr. Rolfs was there,
and they were arguing angrily about the respective merits of White
Wyandottes and White Orpingtons, but when they saw me they uttered two
loud cries of joy and ran to meet me. I tried to cling to the coop, but
they wrested it from me and together carried it in triumph to the north
corner and set it on the grass. Mr. Millington pulled his compass from
his pocket and set the coop exactly as advised by “The Complete Poultry
Guide,” with the bars facing the morning sun, and Rolfs hurried into the
back lot and hunted up a piece of bone, which he crushed with a brick
and placed in the coop, as advised by “The Gentleman Poultry Fancier.”
He told us that a supply of bone was most necessary if he expected his
hen to lay eggs, and that he knew this hen of his was going to be a
great layer. He said he had given the egg question years of study, and
that he could tell a good egger when he saw one.
[Illustration: 135]
Millington told me his coop was not as he had meant it to be, but said
it would do until he could get one built according to scientific poultry
principles. He pointed out that the poultry coop should be heated by
steam, and showed me that there was no room in the soap box for a steam
heating plant. He said he would not trust his flock of chickens through
the winter unless there was steam heating installed.
Then Rolfs and Millington said they guessed the first thing to do, as it
was so late in the season, was to set their hen immediately, and as it
would probably take Spotty thirteen days to lay enough eggs, they told
me to run down to the delicatessen store and buy thirteen eggs, while
they arranged a scientific nest in the corner of their coop, for sitting
purposes. When I suggested that perhaps Spotty was not ready to set,
they laughed at me. They said they could see I would never make a
prosperous chicken farmer if I put off until to-morrow what the hen
ought to do to-day, and that a hen that ought to set, and would not
set, must be made to set. Millington said that he did not mind if Spotty
wanted to lay. If she felt so, she could go ahead and lay while she was
taking her little rests between sets. He said that in that way she would
be doubly useful and that, judging by appearances, she was the kind of
hen that could do two or three things at the same time.
Mr. Prawley, when he saw we were going to keep our hen, came out and
spoke to Mr. Millington, Mr. Rolfs, and me. He said he had an aversion
to hens, but that if I insisted he would devote some of his time to the
hen, but Mr. Millington, Mr. Rolfs, and I assured him we would not need
his help. We felt that the three of us, with occasional aid from Isobel,
could manage that hen.
The next day Mr. Millington and Mr. Rolfs were so swelled with pride
that they would not speak to me on the train. Millington did not ask
me, that entire day, to take a little run up to Port Lafayette in his
automobile. I heard him tell one man on the train to town that he had
just set his eighteen prize White Orpingtons, and I heard Rolfs tell
another man, at the same time, about a coop he had just had made for
his White Wyandottes. He drew a sketch of it on the back of an envelope,
showing the location of the heating plant, the location of the gasoline
brooders, and the battery of eight electric incubators. He said he saw
but one mistake he had made, which was that he had had a gravel roof put
on. It should have been slate. He was afraid the hens would fly up onto
the roof and eat the gravel for digestive purposes, and if a lot of
tarry gravel got in their craws and stuck together in a lump, his hens
would suffer from indigestion. But he said he meant to have the gravel
roof taken off at once, regardless of cost, but he had not quite decided
on a slate roof. One of the slates might become loosened and fall and
kill one of his prize White Wyandottes, which he held at seventy-five
dollars each. If he could avoid the tar trouble, Rolfs said, he ought
to have twelve hundred laying hens by the end of the summer, besides the
broilers he would sell. He said he was going straight to a distinguished
chemist when he reached town to learn if there was any dissolvent that
would dissolve tar in a chicken's craw, without harming the craw.
Then Millington drew a sketch of the automatic heat regulator he was
having made to attach to his heating apparatus. He said that ever since
he had been keeping poultry he had made a study of coop heating, and
that the trouble with most coops was that they were either too hot or
too cold. He said a cold coop meant that the chickens got chilly and
exhausted their vitality growing thick feathers when all their strength
should have been used in egg-laying, and that a hot coop meant that the
chickens felt lax and indolent. A hot coop enervated a chicken and made
it too lazy to lay eggs, Millington said, but this regulator he was
having made would keep the heat at an even temperature, summer and
winter, and render the hens bright and cheerful and inclined to do their
best. Millington explained that this was especially necessary with White
Orpingtons, which are great eaters and consequently more inclined toward
nervous dyspepsia, which makes a hen moody. He was going on in this way,
and every one was hanging on his words, when he happened to say that one
thing he always attended to most particularly was the state of his hens'
teeth. He said he had, so far, avoided dyspepsia in his hens, by keeping
their teeth in good condition. Every one knew poor teeth caused stomach
troubles.
That was the end of Millington. Rolfs had been green with jealousy
because so many commuters were listening to Millington, and the moment
Millington mentioned teeth Rolfs sneered.
“How many teeth do White Orpingtons have, Millington?” he asked.
“I did not know they had any.”
Then Millington saw his mistake, and did his best to explain that as a
rule chickens had no teeth, but that he had, by a process of selection,
created a strain that had eighteen teeth, nine above and nine below,
but no one believed him, and Rolfs was crowing over him when he made
his mistake. He was bragging that he never made a mistake of that kind,
because he knew hens never got indigestion in any such way. All that was
necessary he said, was to let them have plenty of exercise, and to let
them out once in a while for a good fly. He said he let his hens out
once every three days, so they could fly from tree to tree.
Then Millington asked, sneeringly, how high his hens could fly, and
Rolfs said they were in such good condition they thought nothing of
flying to the top of a forty-foot elm tree, and Millington sneered and
said any one could guess what kind of White Wyandottes Rolfs had, when
a common White Wyandotte is so heavy it cannot fly over a rake handle.
That was the end of Rolfs, and I was glad of it, for the two of them
had been getting enough reputation on the strength of my chickens. They
sneaked out of the smoking car, and at last I had a chance to say a few
words, modestly of course, about my splendid group of six hundred Buff
Leghorns. I did not brag, as Millington and Rolfs had bragged, but
stated facts coldly and calmly, and my words met the attention they
deserved, for I was not speaking without knowledge, as Millington and
Rolfs had spoken, but as a man who owns a hen can speak.
I reached home that evening in a pleasant state of mind, for I knew how
kind hearted Isobel is, and I knew she would see, if I placed it before
her, that it was extremely cruel to keep a hen in solitary confinement,
when the hen had probably been accustomed to a great deal of society.
I felt sure that in a few days Isobel would order me to purchase enough
more poultry to allow Spotty to lead a pleasant and sociable life. But
when Isobel met me at the gate she disheartened me.
She said the grocer's grandmother had not been seriously ill, after
all; she had been in a mere comatose condition, and had come to, and the
grocer had come back, and he had called and taken Spotty. He offered to
kill her--Spotty, not Isobel or his grandmother--but Isobel could not
bear to eat Spotty so soon after she had been a member of our family,
so the grocer took Spotty away and sent up another roaster. At least
he said it was another, but after I had carved it I had my doubts. In
general strength and durability the roaster and Spotty were one.
The next morning, when I went out to see if Mr. Prawley had hoed the
garden properly, I found Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington leaning over my
fence. They were unabashed.
“I have just been looking over your place,” said Rolfs, “and I must say
it is a most admirably located place on which to keep a cow. And if you
want any suggestions on cow-keeping, you may call on me at any time. I
have studied the cow, in all her moods and tenses, for years.”
“Nonsense!” said Millington. “A man is foolish to try to keep live
stock. Live stock is subject to all the ills--”
“Such as toothache!” sneered Rolfs.
“All the ills of man and beast,” continued Millington. “What you want is
an automobile. Now I will sell mine--”
“No!” I said positively.
“You only say that because you do not know my automobile as I know it,”
said Millington. “It is a wonder, that machine is. Now, I propose that
to-morrow you and your wife take a little run up to Port Lafayette with
me and my wife. After the cares of chicken raising--”
“Very well, Millington,” I said, “we will go to Port Lafayette!”