The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-24

ferent air, absently pick up chip, drop it and walk on! Did anyone ever see a hen really find worm? I never did. There are no worms in our barnyard, anyhow; Jonathan must have dug them all up for bait when he was boy, have even tried throw ing some real worms to them, and they always respond by a few nervous cackles. and walk past the brown wrigglers with a detached manner, and the robins get them later, And yet they continue to go through all these forms, and we continue to call it scratching for worms. !"
 Jonathan has nothing to do with my hens except to give advice. One of his hobbies Is the establishing of a breed of hens marked by intelligence, which he maintains might be done by careful se- lection of the mothers. Accordingly, whenever he goes to the roost to pick out victim for the sacrifcial hatchet, he first gently pulls the tail of each candidate in turn, by the dim light of the lantern carefully observes the na- ture of their reaction, choosing for des- truction the one whose department seems to him most foolish. Tn this way by wedding out the extremely silly, he hopes in time to raise the general in- tellectual standard of the baruyard. But he urges that much more might be done if my heart were in it. Very likely, but my heart Is not. Intelli- gence is all very well, but the barn yard. I am convinced, Is no place for it, Give me my pretty, silly hens, with all their aimless, silly ways. I will seek intelligence, when want it, else- where.
 In another direction, too, Jonathan's optimistic temperament has found little encouragement This is in regard to the chimney When we first came these little creatures were one of my severest trials. They were not trial to Jonathan. He loved to watch them at dusk, circling and eddying about the great chimney. So, indeed, did I; and If they had but contented themselves with circling and eddying there, I should have had no quarrel with them. did not even object to their evolutions inside the chimney. first I took the untitled shudder of wings for distant thunder, and when great masses of soot Uarne tutlbling down into the fireplace, I jumped but I soon grew accustomed to all this. was even willing to clean the soot out of my neat fireplace daily, while Jon- athan comforted me by suggesting that the birds took the place of chimney sweeps, and that soot was good for rose bushes, Yes, if the little things had been willing to stick to their chimney, I should have been tolerant, if not cordial. But when they invaded my domain, I felt that had a grievance. And invade it they did. At dawn was rudely awakened by rush from the fireplace, man scattering about the duskY room, desperate exit by the little open window, where the raised shade revealed the pale light of morn ing. At night, if went with my can- dle into a dark room, I was met by a whirling thing, dashing itself against me, against the light, against the walls l III ei illOlI-ilhC GC5lusy Ol SCll-uC5lI ton. In the mornings, as I went about the house pulling up the shades and drawing back the curtains, out from their white folds rushed dark winged shapes, whirring past my ears, flutter- ing blindly about the room, sinking exhausted in inaccessible corners. They were as foolish as June bugs,fifty times | bigger, and harder to catch. Moreover, when caught, they were not pretty, their eyes were in the top of their heads, like a snakes, their expression was low and cunning. They were al- most as bad as bats. Worst of all, the young birds had an untidy habit of tumbIing out of the nests down into the fireplace, whether there was fire or not. Now, have no conscientious objection to roasting birds, but prefer to choose my birds, and to kill them 1 first.