Sunday passed quietly. Monday with its school duties was well over.
Tuesday morning--"Three weeks to-day!" said August, and half fearfully
opened his incubator.
"_Peep! Peep! Peep!_"
The lad trembled with excitement, and a flush of joy spread over his
face. He could hardly believe his ears. "One, two, three," he hurriedly
counted, "four, five, six." On he counted, up to twenty eggs chipped or
cracked. One chicken was half out of its shell, and one, quite
independent, was scrambling over the rest of the eggs.
August held his breath and looked at them as long as he dared to keep the
incubator open. Then softly closing the lid, he rushed down stairs.
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" he shouted at the door of his mother's room. "They're
hatching, mamma! They're hatching!"
"Are they, really?" asked mamma, pleased enough, and she hurried up the
stairs, closely followed by the children, whom August's joyful cry had
aroused from their sleep. In great excitement they clustered around the
barrel.
"Oh! what a cunning, fluffy one!" cried little Katie, as she spied the
oldest chick.
"But what is the matter with that other one?" asked Tommy.
"He has just left the shell and is not dry yet," August explained. "As
soon as he is dry he will be downy like the other."
"Hear em say '_peep! peep!_'" cried little Robbie, grasping the edge of
the barrel with both hands, and stretching his short legs to their utmost
extent in order to get his eyes high enough to look over the edge.
"What lots are cracked!" said Tommy. "Oh! August, here is one cracked all
round."
"Yes," said August, "that chick will soon be out." Even as he spoke the
shell parted, and a third little bright-eyed chicken struggled out and
looked about in amazement.
The children could have watched them much longer with great interest, but
mamma was afraid the incubator would get too cool, and she advised August
to cover it.
"How _do_ they do it, mamma?" asked Katie.
[Illustration: HOW THE CHICKEN IS PACKED.]
"The little chick is packed very wonderfully in his shell," said mamma.
"His head under his wing, legs folded up with the feet toward the head,
his bill coming out from under one wing. This bill is furnished with a
little hard point on the top. When he is ready to crack the shell and
come out, he begins to move. He turns his whole body slowly round,
cracking the shell as he goes, by pressing with his whole force against
it, the hard, sharp point on the top of his bill coming next the shell.
When he is a few days old this hard point drops off. Just before he
hatches, after the egg is cracked all around, he frees his head from his
wing and struggles to stretch himself. Then the shell parts and he gets
his head out, and presently his legs, one after the other. I forgot to
say that just before hatching he gradually absorbs the yolk of the egg
into his body, and that nourishes him for twenty-four hours after
hatching."
[Illustration: HOW THE SHELL IS CRACKED.]
"It's very curious, isn't it?" said Tommy.
"I didn't know anything but hens or ducks could hatch eggs," said Katie.
"Why, Katie!" exclaimed August, "there is a place at Canton, in China,
where _thousands_ of ducks' eggs are hatched artificially every day.
There are twenty-eight rooms to the establishment, and all along the
sides of these rooms are rows of sliding trays filled with eggs. These
eggs are put in the first room the first day; on the second day they are
moved to the second room; and so on, until they hatch in the last room.
The heat is graduated, the last rooms being cooler than the first. All
these eggs are hatched by the heat of the rooms."
"If they hatch thousands every day," asked Tommy, "what do they do with
the little ducks?"
"They hatch them for the people in the neighboring towns," replied
August. "The Chinese are very fond of ducks and ducks' eggs. A gentleman
who has been to Canton, and seen the hatching-rooms, told me he had seen
people take eggs there to be hatched. They would pay for the hatching and
then one of the men in charge of the rooms would count their eggs, and
give them just as many little ducklings."
"I guess they don't have accidents there, then," said Katie.
"_I_ won't have accidents _always_," August replied.
"But what _do_ they do with so many ducks?" asked Tommy.
"Why, half the poor Chinese people near the coast live on the water all
the time in boats that are half houses. Of course they could not keep
hens, but they can keep ducks and they do."
"Oh, yes!" cried Tommy. "I 'member how papa told about seeing them fed
and called into the boats. He said every flock knew its own call, and
would go scuttling through the water to the right boat. He thought they
were in this d'edful hurry, cause the last one got whipped."
"What shall I do about school, mamma?" August asked.
"Oh! go, and recite your most important lessons," she answered wisely. "I
will take care of the eggs and chickens till you return."
It was just as well for August to be occupied, since the hatching,
although it went on surely, was slow work.
With great faith in his incubator, August had previously built a little
yard for the expected chickens.
It was in box form, about eight feet long and two feet wide. In the
center was a feeding-tray and water tank, and at one end a hover. This
hover (H) was
[Illustration: THE ARTIFICIAL MOTHER.]
lined with soft fur loosely tacked to the top and sides and hanging down
the front in narrow strips to form a curtain. It sloped from the front to
the back. The water tank was a stout earthen bottle in a saucer; a small
hole near the bottom of the bottle let the water, drop by drop, into the
saucer, so that as the chickens drank, the supply in the saucer was
continually freshening. The bottom of the yard was covered with gravel
three inches deep. This neat yard was now waiting down stairs in a sunny
shed room to receive the chickens.
August went to school, and on his way home called for his grandmother to
go up to the house to dinner.
Grandma knew that it was just three weeks since August had taken the last
eggs, and that twenty-one days was the time allotted by nature for the
bringing forth of chickens, so she shrewdly suspected what she would
find; but it had not occurred to her that she would find chickens alive
without the aid of a hen.
"Grandma," asked August, as they walked along "when you set a hen on
thirteen eggs, how many do you expect will hatch?"
"I hope for all," she replied, "but I seldom get all. I think ten out of
thirteen is a very good proportion."
"My incubator beats your hens!" thought August.
When they reached the house he took her straight to the attic.
"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "So that is your secret, August! Well, I
declare! And it really hatches the eggs, doesn't it? I always knew,
child, that you would invent something wonderful."
"I didn't _invent_ much," he said modestly. "In 1750, Réaumur, the
French naturalist, gave an account of his experiments in hatching eggs in
barrels set in hot-beds of horse-manure; and the Chinese and the
Egyptians have hatched them for ages in ovens."
"But this is by hot water and lamps," said Grandma.
"Yes," said August, "I never saw an incubator before I made this; but,
Grandma, I had read of them made on the same principle."
"At any rate," said Grandma, "I think that you deserve great credit for
patience and ingenuity."
By evening thirty chickens were hatched from the thirty-six eggs. The
other six gave no signs of life. By Grandma's advice they were left in
the incubator "to give them a chance," but they never hatched.
The next morning all the members of the family took the chickens
down-stairs, even Robbie, who took two in a basket, and deposited them in
their new home.
Then their food was prepared, the yolks of hard-boiled eggs crumbled up
fine, bread crumbs, milk, and a little fine cracked corn. After a few
days they could be fed almost entirely upon the cracked corn.
The whole family then stood around the yard admiring the brood, thirty
little, bright-eyed, yellow, fluffy balls. They soon learned to eat and
to drink, and were busy, happy little creatures. They would run under the
hover when they wanted warmth or quiet, just as naturally as they would
have run under a mother hen. The box was built on castors, and could be
rolled from window to window, and thus kept in the sunlight, in which the
little creatures reveled; and at night it could be pushed near the stove.
Of course August had to renew the gravel very often, and he was very
particular to keep the food dishes sweet and clean. When the weather grew
warm enough the yard was rolled into an open shed, and they could run out
of doors.
These chickens were considered very wonderful, and many visitors came to
see them. They grew fast and were as tame as kittens. Day after day the
children came to feed the pretty pets, bringing them young clover tops
and tender grass. Katie treated them with her birds' canary and hemp
seed. Robbie gave them bits of his cookies and cakes. Anything that the
children liked to eat, these little chickens liked also; and when they
heard the little boots coming towards them they would perch on the edge
of their yard and chirp and peep and coax for their dainties.
By and by their wings began to grow and the fluffy down was changed to
feathers. Grandma said that now they must have meat occasionally, chopped
up fine, and they had it Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The little creatures were frantic for the meat. They would fly upon
August, and, if they could get there, into the dish, which they more than
once overturned.
When their plumage was well out they were handsome fowls. August built a
large coop and out-door yard for them, but they were not often confined
in it, for the children loved to have them about with them, and watched
them as carefully as a hen mother could have done; and great was the joy
of Katie and Robbie as they ran to their mother to report the first
crowing of the little cockerels.
When last I saw them they were well grown. The pullets, August proudly
informed me, were laying.
It was the glorious Fourth. Torpedoes were the order of the day, and
Katie and Robbie were amusing themselves by throwing the snappers in all
directions, and seeing their feathered pets run to eat what they could
never find. The other fowls, disturbed by the noise of the day, preferred
to keep hidden away in their houses, but these liked to keep about with
the children and see the fun.
August began his experiments when some of my young readers were quite
little children. He has continued them through several seasons, until
now, after much study and patient industry, he has enlarged and greatly
improved his incubator. He has changed its form entirely, and has
attached an electric apparatus which regulates the heat, and avoids all
danger from smoke. He has applied for a patent, and has made arrangements
for taking care of a large number of chickens as early as February, being
still greatly interested in this successful "'speriment."
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[A] Fahrenheit and Réaumur were both inventors of thermometers.
Those commonly in use are Fahrenheit's.