The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1878-01-31
if they ever heard of Nicolo Paganin;;
for it is of his boyhood that I write.


If they ever heard of Nicolo PaganiI;;
for it is of his boyhood that write.
Bobby.
Have I ever told yoa about Bobby
Brown-my Bobby BROWNE She is one
of the eccentricities of the farm, and
made herself a pet in way and maner as
follows
At twilight one evening last June, a
full hour after all the fowl, little and big,
had gone to roost, was sitting just in
side the back door, when what should
come toddling along so late but little,
brown, fluffy, one-day-old chicken. 1t
sidled up the broad steps as best it could
and, piping quite dolefully, stopped at
my feet and asked to be taken up as
plainly as chicken could. So take it up
/ did, and as it nestled in my closed hand
the pitful piping became the softest,
most satisfied "tweehng."
Taking it back to its coop beneath the
cottonwood group about three rods away,
I tucked it under its mothers wing, but
on getting back to the door, there was
the little thing at my heels. So what
could I do but consider it a founding
and settle it safe for the night in bit Of
old shawl in basket to carry it with me
later to my bedroom.
Four times I presented Bobby
though it had not been named then-tO
a different mother, hoping it might at
last find a guardian congenial to its
tastes. But whether its little brothers
and sisters had told it horrible stories in
the darkness of how, night after night,
big, long tailed rats came to the coops
and carried off little chickens from their
dear mammals, or whether it had some
clairvoyant sense of danger, I do not
know At all events stay with me it
would, and / hGd to be its auntie. It
lived altogether in the farmhouse, never
venturing into the cottage; was never
under foot, but just trudged about from
morning till night picking up what
kitchen delicacies it could. It snapped
at flies the livelong day, and had crop
like an Alderman's. It caught more
mice than the cats, and killed them by
humping them on the floor. It had a
CHEEKY spirit that commended itself to
bipeds without feathers, and sang and
chirped necessarily always the same
great many different things.
During the day it never paid any one
the least attention, and always SHE'D off
l.
But as roosting- time came on, it fol-
loved me about like child, whimpering
and crying most earnestly to be put to
'tweet, tweet" in most comfortable
until morning. Occasionally I would
was so very funny that l had to laugh,
legs and all, to see what was behind the
laugh, perhaps, was quite alarmed, for
/ was afraid L should have to swallow it.
Sometimes, evenings. I would be so
busy running around from coop TO coop.
erecting barricades against rats, that
poor Bobby's sleepy cries were unheed-
ed. But it kept at my heels all over the
place, and then if dusk had come on it
would trudge off into the farm house
where would find it with its head I'M
der its wing roosting on the lower round
of kitchen chair.
Bobby is now half grown chicken,
but, though it no longer likes to be pat
ronized, it keeps mostly about the house
and has very little to say to the other
fowls. So they don't like it.
One night, month or so ago, it was
L
a lower bough of cottonwood tree be-
fore the farmhouse door, where twenty
or thirty hens and their chickens roasted.
It had struck out for itself and would
have got on very well if it hadn't whim-
pered SO. For the old hens and big
chickens that roasted near it saw what a
baby it was and picked it, sometimes
even reaching over from another bough
to give it peck. As stood below, it
looked wistfully down at me +; SO I put
up my hand, when it raised its ri ght
foot and elasped it around my finger,
but then, as if gritting its teeth, SO to
speak, with a firm resolve, ga pullet
now or never = it suddenly drew back
and there Bobby has roasted ever since.
For as her comb did not grow, and
her tail did not lengthen, we were
forced to consider her a pullet, yet we
still call her Bobby, shertfor Bobinette,
if you please, for she wouldn't answer to
anything else even ii her name were
changed by special act Of Legislature