966 



JOtTBNAL OF UORTIOULTURE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEB. 



[ Hay 33, U67. 



These were pnt into a basket and taken into the parlour, where 

 there was no kettle to boil over. During the day four more came 

 out, and the one White Dorking ; and in the evening Janet was 

 in a great dilemma. What should she do with her Bantams — 

 roll them up in flannel and put them in the oven all night, or 

 give them back to the hen ? Everybody thought they would be 

 trampled to death before morning, and yet she must have them 

 Bometime, so why not at first? Next morning Janet found two 

 of her chickens dead, and one egg squeezed so flat that the 

 bird was killed ; and the two remaining eggs though chipped 

 did not appear to be making any progress, and certainly had 

 not much chance, for their mother did not care about them in 

 the least ; she stood upon her legs, shook her wings, and 

 walked about and called her little ones after her, and finally 

 settled dowQ in a corner, as far a-vay from her nest as could 

 be, appearing only to have one desire — to thrust her tail right 

 through the stone wall out into the garden. 



What could be done with the forsaken eggs ? Janet was 

 Bure she could bring them out alive, saying it only required 

 time, patience, nicety, warm water, and a pair of very fine 

 scissors ; and Janet had one and all of these. So she made the 

 trial, and sat for hours in the hot sunshine of a May day by 

 the table on which was placed a china basin containing a little 

 warm water in which were the eggs. When the water cooled 

 she added more warm, then took out one egg and wrapped it 

 in cotton wool and put it on the stove. Every few minutes 

 she opened it out to crack the shell a little more, or to break 

 off pieces that were already cracked, until the bird had its 

 feet free, and then could help itself. Then the other egg took 

 its turn under the operator's hand. 



Time and patience indeed worked wonders beneath Janet's 

 delicate fingers ; and when the evening came the chickens 

 were out of their shells and alive. Poor little weak things, 

 they looked unable to hold up their heads or stand upon their 

 legs, and very proud was Janet when she took them to their 

 mother ; but the Dorking was unwilling to regard t^e new 

 comers as her own ; she would not shelter them, and they were 

 afterwards given to her in the dark, so that when the dayUght 

 came she could not know them from her own. 



Janet's hen-house, a temporary place made of wood, which 

 George had put up, was one of those clean places, all too clean 

 for chickens. The poor hen could not find a fly or spider on 

 the fresh lime-washed walls, and the floor was constantly 

 scoured out with stones as they do in Yorkshire, so that the 

 Dorking might scrape and scrape, and yet find nothing, not 

 even a bit of hay, or grass, or straw to make a nest of, or to 

 toss about for pleasure as mother hens love to do. There was 

 not a grain of sand or speck of dust — nothing in the world for 

 the hen to do. She could not even turn over the fountain, it 

 stood so firmly ; and the dish containing their food was too 

 shallow to be upset, so there was nothing left for the chicks but 

 to paddle in and out among the bread and milk, and waste 

 much more than they ate. 



A fortnight passed, there were no deaths to register in 

 Janet's poultry book ; if the Bantams did not thrive and grow, 

 they at least lived. Cook said, " They never would be worth 

 anything in the world. They wanted more air and sunshine ; 

 they ought to have fresh green sods daily from the field to peck 

 at and play with, and thus give them something to do besides 

 eating and sleeping." So on the first fine day Janet gathered 

 up all her chickens into her little black silk apron, and took 

 them out into the garden to sun. They could not have sun- 

 shine in their little house, so she would give them an airing ; 

 but the chickens did nothing but fret and make a great noise, 

 which their owner bore with admirable patience, thinking it 

 was for their good. At the end of half an hour she took them 

 home to their half-wild mother, who in her auger at their 

 absence knocked them about right and left, rapping them hard 

 with her bill, covering them with her wings one minute, and 

 the next sending them adrift, scolding all the time, until the 

 poor little Bantams began to wonder, like Trotty Vech, if they 

 had any business in the world. 



But a darker day was drawing near for the chickens, a day ever 

 to be remembered ; it was when they were nearly a month old 

 just the age when mortality runs riot among them, carrying off 

 the weakly ones, and testing the strength even of the strong. 

 It was a rule at Ridge House to take in a good feed every night 

 for the little things to find early in the morning, so that Janet 

 had no need to go to them until af|;er breakfast. One Saturday 

 night the rain came down in torrents, so the maid put aside 

 the food, thinking she would take it by-and-by. She never 

 remembered to do so. Next morning the bells were ringing 



before Uncle Tetley or any one, save Aunt Margaret, made an 

 appearance to breakfast. There was a great hurry and fuss to 

 be at church in time. Then after service it was pleasant 

 loitering slowly home through the country lanes. Janet seemed 

 to find it so, for she was slower than anv one. Then came tha 

 dinner earlier than usual, for Cousin Walter had undertaken 

 to teach a class in the Sunday school for a friend who was 

 away in London. Then there were cake and wine and fruit, the 

 good things which could not be hurried from, so that it was three 

 in the afternoon when Janet sought her Bantams, not to see if 

 they wanted anything, but for her own pleasure, unlocking the 

 door and going in, without any forebo'ling feeling of coming 

 sorrow. She called out " chick, chick," and the hen flew up 

 and bit her wrist, and no wonder, for the floor was strewn with 

 her dead chickens, three, four, five of them, another gasping 

 out its last, its head resting on the empty fountain. There waa 

 not a crumb of bread, or gvoat, or bit of rice to eat, nor even a 

 sod to peck at in desperation, and the few Bantams that were 

 alive crawled feebly after their mother. 



I am afraid we did not sympathise much with Janet, for 

 Aunt Margaret called her a cruel girl to pine her chickens to 

 death ; and cook said, " There was little sense in crying after 

 spilled milk, and that all the wailing in the world couldn't 

 bring 'em back ;" and " Janet declared it would not have hap- 

 pened if she had not trusted Mary to do it ;'' and Kate said, 

 " Janet never would succeed with poultry because she regarded 

 them altogether from a wrong point of view. She thought of 

 her own pleasure, not their good." , 



After this Janet took great care of her three Bantams, she 

 gave them sand and sods, and fresh water, never forgot to 

 feed them, and never again separated them from their mother, 

 but took them out into the sunshine for hours ; but the evil 

 done was in a measure past remedy, a pined chicken seldom 

 recovers. One of the three sickened and died before it was two 

 months old ; another, a little hen, grew up deformed, its back 

 was crooked, and its tail on one side. Only one grew up of 

 fair proportions, a fine little fellow he was, loud in voice, 

 quick of motion, and with a coat glossy as an old starling's. A 

 general pet was Master Charley ; he would spring on your 

 hand, eat out of your fingers, and betray no fear nor desire for 

 liberty. 



When the mother Dorking left her Bantams, which she did 

 not do until her new nest was half full of eggs, then the Bantam 

 hen drooped and pined away, and was at last found dead under 

 some rhubarb leaves. Master Charley did not miss her much, 

 she was no companion to him in his long strolls through the 

 fields, or his high flights upon the walls, where he used to beat 

 his wings and crow out lustily, with a voice like a giant's. But 

 Charley lost favour, he was a great thief, and the thing he 

 liked best to steal was butter. Many a time in a week waB 

 he found upon the kitchen table digging his bill deep into 

 the soft new butter. So Aunt Margaret said it would be best 

 to send him away. He was taken to a farm-house a few miles 

 in the country ; but he did not settle there, he missed the old 

 faces, and moped about in corners, hanging his wings and tail, 

 and was never heard to crow. He had not been there many 

 weeks when he was drowned in a tub of wort. He was then 

 put into a basket, and sent home. We dug a hole in the Vine- 

 border, unreached by Vine roots, and as near .as we could re- 

 member to the fifteen Bantams, and we buried him there. 

 Janet said " she was sure the eggs must have ailed something, 

 or all the chickens would not have died." — M.iud. 



CAVE CANEM. 



(FOR CANEM RE.4.D CAMBERWELL.) 

 In the beginning of the year I advertised some Game Ban- 

 tams for sale. I was kindly answered by a gentleman who had' 

 evidently his "little place in Surrey," not far from "The 

 Green," and that pellucid stream known as " The Canal." I 

 was requested to send some birds immediately, and to write 

 word by what train they would arrive in London. " An ac- 

 ceptance at three days " was promised by the next post. 

 There was something so " truly rural " in the whole aflfair 

 that I could not do otherwise than exclaim with Charley 

 Bates, " So jolly green ! " Thereupon I sent two letters, the 

 one saying that the birds would arrive in London by such and 

 such a train, the other to a " denizen of ' The Grove,' " a little 

 bird who whispered by return of post unsatisfactory things. 



I did not send the birds. In a day or two after the time 

 when they should have been deUvered, I had a letter to the 



