One is surprised at the wonderful vitality to be found in an egg. The
following incident, almost incredible as it seems, is an absolute fact.
Mrs. Jane, very fond of raising select breeds of chickens, put a setting
of fine Brahma eggs under what she considered an absolutely trustworthy
Biddy,—but, alas! Biddy proved unstable, like many another biped, and
went off in a few days, leaving her nest and rather costly contents to
the mercy of the elements.
Mrs. Jane, in three or four days, discovered the abandoned domicile,
and, determined not to be outdone by any such maneuver on the part of
Biddy, proposed to show her that Brahma chickens could be developed
without the assistance of any old hen.
So, not having an incubator of any approved manufacture, she proceeded
to make one. She secured a large bread pan to hold the water, a small
wooden pail to hold the eggs, which were wrapped in warm flannel, and a
good kerosene lamp, which was placed under the pan holding the water and
then lighted.
The bucket containing the eggs was then placed in the pan of water and
the whole apparatus left in a quiet bedroom.
Oh, how Mr. Jane and the boys and the neighbors twitted Mrs. Jane about
wasting coal oil and time in keeping those eggs warm! But, behold! in a
little over two weeks, one morning a shell was chipped, at noon another,
and by the next morning four pert little downy fellows occupied the
bottom of the bucket, with seven unhatched eggs.
Those chickens grew faster than almost any chickens ever known. They
were never anything but tame, and the most active of the four, who bears
the appropriate name of Theodore Roosevelt, allows any one to pick him
up and fondle him, but is ready to fight with anything in the poultry
yard—big chicken, little chicken, the skye terrier, the cat or anything
else that is or might be in his way. Mrs. Jane says she never was sorry
for her experiment but once, and that is all the time.
The cause for Mrs. Jane’s regret is the fact that whether she be in the
hen yard, kitchen or parlor, no place except right under her motherly
gown is quite good enough for these enterprising birds.
Recently I saw “Teddy” open the screen and walk into the kitchen.
He lifted his foot, pulled the screen open wide enough to admit his head
and then pushed his whole body, now quite large and plump, through the
crack.
How long this interesting little hero, with his mates, will be permitted
to enjoy the rights of chickendom yet remains to be seen, but the fact
that “Mrs. Jane’s incubator was a success” has been admitted by all who
were so skeptical when she began her novel experiment.
Mary Noland.