Year: 1874

Composition the Subject by a


small Boy.


Most usually it takes two eggs for to
make a chicken, because, if you will


Will put eighteen eggs under q hen,


only about nine of 'em viii hatch. A
hen Is so careless and stubborn that
most likely she won't cover her eggs all
over, and so they get chilled then they
are everlastingly gone mp. Also, the
rats viii rob nest; so that, if you get
half of 3 brood, it is q tol'able crop,
and you should be thankful. Then. 1
think, 1t stands to reason this ought to
prove what said at first. A hen, which
has got a young family, is more crosser
than anything else which can be- COM
pared with her under the sun in the


United States. There never was a thing
which can ruffie its feathers up backward
and rage worse than a fool hen. a
turkey gobbler will do It, but he don't
go off into a red-hot passion about it,
and make fool of himself, and get enc
mics all for nothing, like hen would.
A chicken in the spring time which was
put to hatch in March, if it has good
luck and don't die of the pip, or gaps,
or the scholery-morbus, or get drownded
or something, will be big enough to sell
to the restaurant about in June. They
will fetch S6 dozen, and chicken is
more popular where it is q spring chick
en- than If it would live long enough to
get as tough as Methuseler. They say
that a spring chicken is a luxurious
thing for to 5ron and mix up with toast.
That's what have heard. Once in
great while we have spring chickens for
dinner. Then we have the preache-. or
else some company, and I eat at the
secondhand table, and / can always tell
by the savory smell going on in the
kitchen that broiled chicken ought to
be good enough for anybody. But if
can't get something to eat more sub
stantiailer than a smell, I always fall
back on roast beef. A chicken don't
gather shrewdness like a owl, and it
never picks up any wisdom. It is not
talented thing like 8 fox. If you can
show me more stupider thing than
hen, wish you would trot her out.
The rooster has got what little sense
there ever was in the family. It is one
of the worst difficulties with a chicken
that she don't know its place. She
won't stay in the barn-ya ard, where she
belongs, any way you can fix it. If
your mother has got fower-beds in the
it's a mighty curious
mother which ain't-eVery last chicken
on the place viii get in to search them,
if it takes till next Christmas; and then
goodbye to the hyacinths, and Gro
cuses, and jerryranthems, and all that
kind of fOolishness. Then is the time
that you want to have two jackets on,
or else to forget to come home early, if
it was you which left the lattice gate
open. Anyhow, that's my advice. Also,
q hen is hard-hearted and cruel, and
will kill every little desolated stray
chicken who tries to associate with her
own brood, and this a good enough rea-
son why she is like a step-mother If
hen once gets a fair hold of a little
to shake it by the nape of its
neck, it will never kick again In this
more than twice. The fire.
quentest bad habit which hen has got
is going off to the neighbors to lay
also it is too soft thing for the neigh
bors but it is generally chronic for a
hen to do it, and the only way for to
cure her is to cut her head off and boil
her down into soup. She won't go to
the neighbors to lay many times after
that, I don't think.