St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1901-07-27
WOES OF MARY ANN.

A year or two IN charge Of an anna
teur chicken farm ought to be the besi
training in the world for the warden
of a home for the feeble-minded. For
to paraphrase what the old poet said
OF Strawberries, doubtless the Lord
might have made bigger fool than
an old hen, but, doubtless, also, hen
erdid Given SO easy and sensible ways
Of doing thing and one way which
verges on imbecility and the average
hen may safely be trusted to follow
the latter, no matter what ingenuity
and hard work it mighttak to find it.
Even the maternal instinct in the hen
is exercised with no intelligence. She
is mother simply because she hap
pens to be, and she goes clucking
around at a great rate, stepping on
and crushing her fuffy little chicks,
perhaps, and gobbling up most of the
food which is prepared for them.
OF course, there are exceptions.
There is Mary Ann, for insanee. Her
case is pathetic Mary Ann is a thin,
light drab hen, with a long, skinny
neck, and ridiculous expression of
countenance. From her looks she
was cut out for an old maid. ButWith
the perversity Of chicken nature she
has been trying to hatch out some
chickens for the last two months. IL
she ever succeeds it will be purely an
accident.
For the first two weeks Of the two
months Mary Ann sat with great ap-
parent self-satisfaction on q collec-
ton Of curios consisting Of a brown
door knob, half a brick, the handle
of a curry comb, two corn cobs and q
china egg. Then she was dueked in
a pail of eSSd water with the idea of
curing her, but the treatment was not
effective. So SIX weeks ago Mary Ann
was given Is fresh eggs to sit on and
was transferred to a cell in the incura-
BILE ward. The cells are barrels, rest
ing on their sides, and Mary Ann was
the first to occupy one. Forsix weeks
she has been steadily sitting and ana-
iously. but not Jet has the first in
fantile scheep' greeted her maternal
ears.
The fact is that Mary Ann is the
victim Of a conspiracy on the part of
the other sitting hens. The way they
have played it on the guileless Mary
Ann is positively shameless. In all
q dozen barrels lying in row along
the side Of the wall are occupied by
sitting hens. On the floor in front are
8 trough of food and another Of wa
ter, SO that the hens may leave their
eggs for a moment now and then and
get bite to eat and a cupful of meta
phorical tea Twice Mary Ann has
been within q day or two of Matching
8 brood of chickens, but each time
some hen which had just begun to sit
has stolen her nest while she was
snatehing bill full of screenings,
leaving Mary Ann to go back and be-
gin almost at the beginning again
Twice these false foster mothers, aft
er sitting less than week in all, have
triumphantly led off a brood of what,
in law and equity, were really Mary
AIMS chicks, while the poor old drab
hen still fattens herself down in the
straw and warns what may turn out
to be another yiper's brood in her
feathers There are 25 chicks now
running around the yard and putting
on their pin feathers which would
have called Mary Ann mother if they
had not been stolen, as it were, from
the cradle.
The other day when Priscilla, So
called because she lisa Plymouth Rock,
came off the nest with one of Mary
AIMS stolen broods new and puz-
cling problem was presented. Mary
Ann had originally been set With IS
eggs. Priscilla came off the nest with
IA chicks; leaving four eggs I'M
hatched. The mystery was explained
by the Retired Agriculturist.
tsHens been a-laying il the nest,
he said. They's a lot Of 'emM Just
pnpop aroun' an wait for ehanst TO