Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-08-13

| describe an over-important lord of crea-
| ton we say he thinks himself cock of
| the walk
The hen in her youthful days is pert
! and proud as fair maidens are apt to be 4;
IN maturity she is matronly and GemUre,
or she is unendurably fussy. The say
ing cross as setting hen, =" "restless as
a hen on a hot griddle," or "fiOpping
about like hen with her head off" is APP
! piled to the fussy and illnatured or the
restless and unsettled of womankind with
vexatious frequency.
And there is likeness in hen mothers
and woman mothers in this: they both
fOndle and scold their young, they both
| seek to lead them into safe and pleasant
places, they fear they will be drowned
when they venture into water, and alike
they warn them to beware of hawks
a common expression for cowardly
man is chicken-hearted, and, cOntrairi-
wise, brave woman, one who from a
rOstrum addresses a multitude, is desig-
mated a Growing hen" But no man ever
(and men have written most of our adages)
no man ever yet embodied the fact in
a telling aphOrism that a rooster is apt to
| cackle as much over the egg he has not
laid as the hen cackles who laid it. For
centuries a vain beau has been termed a
coXcomb, and when your opponent puts
on defiant air you say she is ruffiing
his feathers"
To express true grit or pluck we say
Of our village rOwdy, rather indignantly,
[ admit: " He has sand in his CROP
In both the fowl and the human fam
lily the presentation of bills is the cause
OF much excitement, and veXation, and
discord, and bother. And yet, oh! is not
the term len-pecked" of greater
significance than they all? And
the writer of this paper once
had the fountain of her feelings
rolled back, like a wild Alpine
torrent, on her heart in this wise: she
had yentured some Well-meaning adj
vice, some sisterly counsel to younger
brother, though he was not spring
chicken" either, and was abruptly told
in answer not to fret her gizZard"
Several passages of Scripture might
be brought to bear on this subject, but
what scientist would not prefer some
thing vague and far-fetched to aught
that could be quoted from that old-fash
toned volume?
Perhaps my most ancient help is
Esop, who, out of his 10 fables, devotes
game fowl. A wise person was Hsop.
And glorious Shakespeare has his
Macduff to eXclaim, What all my
pretty chickens" etc. Could better evil
dence than this be wished for? When
the deeps of his heart were broken up
with the OverpOwering emotion of
great sorrow, Nature asserts herself,
Macduf is true to first principles, and
he uttered a simple yet sublime truth
when he termed his own offspring
chickens.
And after all this, if anybody, espe-
cially any American, should be unwilling
to receive this golden truth that the hen
supplies the missing link, | have yet one
sumner in reserve with which to settle
him. The egg, you know, with which
Columbus tried his little experiment,
think Of that! where would Columbus
discovery have been without that egg,
that good egg? 1t would have laid dor
mant, remained unfiedged, at least, if
not unmatched, in the nest Of his great
brain, and then, fearful to contemplate,
this vast continent would, up to the pres
ent hour, have been traversed by rowing
bands of Indians, savages who would
likely have been content to believe SIM
ply that the Great Spirit made them,
would have lived and died without even
a conjecture or the faintest hint from any
quarter that they were ever e00yUed at all.
Now, dear, friendly reader, do not dis
miss this, my new theory, without
serious thought, and do not damn it with
faint praise. Remember the Spanish
prOverb that courses, like chickens, come
home to roost"
Happy in the thought that this paper
will Oiy7n no tn ri 1ityr I
being but woman, happier in the
thought that with what / receive for this
article from my generous publisher may
be able to fiaunt the prettiest spring bon
net with the longest feather in it in our
Village. | now have one of the new old
style t0p-b7lOt combs. Just here the doctor,
my husband, looks over my shoulder to
say, Don't count your chickens before
they are hatched." | bear it with Chris
tian fortitude and resignation, however,
for even this proves his descent; this
chicken language that still clings to him
originated with his remote ancestors.
here declare myself to be so firmly
established in my belief in the doctrine of
evolution and Our departure from these
worthy bipeds so common to, and priced
by, the ancient Egyptians, those friendly
bipedS so useful TO our civilization, that
anybody's trouble to disprove it would be
vain, and you will not, nay, you cannot,
deny that my chain of reasoning is
without the big words of science) scien-
titc; it is logical, it is poetical and it is
original.
p. 81 shall be Gas mad as wet
hen" if I don't get that gay-feathered
bonnet; and [ might as well have my
neck wrung at once as to have my hus-
band cr010 oDer my not getting it.-Ar-
thurs Home Nagazi16 for august.