National Republican., 1878-04-08
Chicken Pie.

The transition from chickens on the perch
to chickens In the pie seems more natural and
easy according to whateley and Newman than
it Is according to poultry. i abominato
chicken pies as cdiblcs but be assured from
no fellow feeling" / love to SEQ them, to
think of them, but not to eat them. would
as soon make meal Of "reminiscences, or call
for Melapter rare done" at dinner. They
are suggestive they are melancholy-chicken
pics are; they bring to mind DAYS that went
down long ago at home; the capacious and
FURNISHED tin pan, wherein "mother'-your
mother and mne-used to bake them
aforetime; the old family table, round
to rather on Christmas days aud
Thanksgivings; when to hold the lantern
Mt night while somebody robbed the hen -roost
was an era; when we used to run away before
they were beheaded, because we couldn't bear
to see It y when We just wanted to hold one
minute, ITO see how II would seem" :" when u
wing was treasure, and we played" Il was
bird, and hid IL In the trundle bed when we
you and I-grasped the wish. bone" and
wished, aud both pulled, and both held frag-
ment. Don't remember5 All ! there's moro
beneath that swelling crust than everybody
dreams Of, and the chickens are small item
indeed. That mnemonic pie minds me, too,
of days when to find hens nest was to have
an ecstasy; the more eggs, the more ecstasy.
and fame since then, and II never quickened u
pulse How the chip hat was dofed. prepar-
tory to the removal Of the deposits" and tho
eggs transferred thereto; and no Roman, re-
turning from flushed fields Of conquest, felt
half so grand s you and | when We counted
the treasures, one by one, into mothers apron,
and had visions of little pic apiece, baked
upon our scalloped tins"
Sometimes, after driving rain, you rcmem-
her we used to find downy chick, drcnched
with water, In drticu,o m0rfis. The little
handled basket, stained with strawberries sum
mers before, was nicely lined with cotton, and
the gasping helplessness nestled therein, and
tho basket, with its precious contents, covered
with cloth, was set In warm corner near
the kitchen fire to keep 1t warm.
And what times we had, wetting up meal and
feeding and watching aud tending! How
many times we pccped under the cloth, just to
see how it is now" Fierce alteration
sorry to say it-about tho ownership of the
tenant in the basket would arise, and tho
titles tried by the usual test of who 1t frst,
who go to 1t first, who put IL in the basket,
whose hen laid 1t, or whose hen hatched it
aud may be, meanwhile. the chicken would be
dying. Tho right Of possession occurs stimuli
taneously to both; plunge is made for tho
basket, the cloth falls of in the melee, and tho
chicken lies there among tho white wool
dead War Is turned to weeping. | made q
hb'S eoihh, you uuR GRAVE. Inc
was borne out beneath the apple tree, and
there we buried it and sang as we'll US wo
could.
"Hark !! from the tombs doleful sound"
That done, you remember one of us wrote
upon the fragment of a slate Sacred to tho
memory of"--ah, there was the difficulty; it
had no name. But this disposed of, we con-
tinued, "A little Biddy drowned to death, July
III, Is Then We drew over the top dis
tant resemblance Of weeping willow, very
dropping and sad, and set 1t up at the head Of
the grave. That afternoon there was a shower,
and at night, when we went out TO see the lit
tic grave again, the inscription was gone,
washed away by the rain.drops. Strange wo
never thought Of 1t then, but we have since;
slate, marble or brass pencil, graver, or gid.
ing-its all the same. The world weeps away
its grieis, and with those griefs the memory Of
the wept. Since then we have both stood by
other graves-times too many, doubtless-with
deeper, but never with truer sorrowing than
when beneath the old spple-tree We paid our
childish tribute TO the dead nesting.
BENZ. +. TAYLOR.