September 18, 1866. ] 



JOUHNAL OF IIOllTICULTUllB AND COTTAGE GAliDENER. 



•1-i'J 



He must choose the place for sitting, and be allowed to visit 

 her now and then. The place was on the door in a stabli api 

 then in use, and the nest was made round with B fi -. stones 

 and bricks, and a basketful of fresh soil from the garden put 

 in the bottom. Then the dear half-crown eggs were put in, 

 the little boy doing all this. Of course, at first the hen did 

 not like the strange place, but we waited quietly, and by-and- 

 by she walked on the nest, and settled down. " Oh, she'll sit 

 now, no fear," the little boy exclaimed ia great glee. Then he 

 showed me how to take her from the nest if she did not come 

 herself — " and she will not, for fear you should rob her. See, 

 put your hands under her wings and lift her up so, or else 

 she may break one by holding it in her wing, and if she does 

 that every day there wo'n't be many lctt at the end of three 

 weeks. Do it every day, make her eat. if you don't the eggs 

 wo'n't grow, and she will starve. I'm always cold when I go to 

 bed without supper, and she will be too." I thanked the little 

 fellow, put him out at the back gate, and told him to come as 

 often as he liked to look at his pet. 



The days wore on to the end of the three weeks. I had 

 been out visiting some friends and came home through the 

 soft moonlight, one May-day evening. " Your chicks are out, 

 Miss, I believe," said cook, " for I heard a queer noise in the 

 stable this afternoon, and the little boy was here, and he said, 

 ' I must not go near for the world, the black hen would bite all 

 the skin of me if I did, for she couldn't bide big women.' " 

 We took a candle, the lantern could not be found, and went 

 out to see. The nest was there, bricks, stones, and soil, but 

 no hen, no chicks. The stable was well nigh empty, so our 

 search soon came to an end. " That comes of having any- 

 thing to do with common people," said cook, " I thought the 

 little imp was after something, 'he laughed so, and was about 

 all the afternoon." 



On our way back to the kitchen door we had to pass a little 

 outhouse where grain and meal were kept. Chancing to pause 

 by this door, I thought I heard a low chirping noise, so looked 

 in. There in a comer, half buried in fresh hay, was the poor 

 black hen. I lifted her off in the old way. Dear me, what a 

 nestful of soft white balls — thirteen, of them — strong living 

 chickens. Oh ! the joy it was to sec them. I wonder if the 

 reverence, the awe with which in our young days we look upon 

 new life, must die away as we become older and wiser. I pray 

 not. 



Next morning came the feeding question. " They must 

 have nothing but ehopped-np eggs and suet," said one ; " bread 

 soaked in gin is the best thing," said another. "You will 

 never rear them," said papa. "Dorkings are the worst of all 

 fowls to rear, I have been reading about them in Johnson's 

 ' Poultry Book,' and they will thrive only on a sandy soil, and 

 ours has no sand in it. If I had known all this before, I 

 would not have thrown away a guinea and a half." 



" Don't give them chopped eggs at first, if you are wise,"' 

 said mamma, " if you do they will eat nothing else, and you 

 cannot afford to buy eggs for them at lad. a-dozen, even if you 

 would." 



" Oh, I will give them bread and milk ; old Mrs. Sanders 

 down in the valley does hers, and she rears for the market." 



" You might as well give them poison at once, cook says," 

 remarked papa. 



" Cook knows nothing about the matter. Colonel Simpson 

 keeps scores of fowls, and he feeds his on rice, dry rice.'' said 

 cousin Walter, "I would try that, it would be cheap food for 

 them. You can buy it at 2d. a-pound." 



" Yes, but his are Bantams," said papa, " and they are hardy 

 compared to White Dorkings. They may well be* Bantams, 

 poor things, they could not well grow into anything else on 

 such food." And quite out of patience I set off with some 

 bread and new mill; for my little flock. I had been longing to 

 see them all breakfast time, and durst not leave. 



They all followed — papa, mamma, cousin Walter, cook, 

 housemaid, and even little scully with her black face. I sup- 

 pose they expected to see the poor things drop down di 

 moment they tasted the bread. They must have been greatly 

 disappointed, for out came the little white balls from under 

 the black hen, and they danced, and sang, and tumbled about 

 their saucer, and then ran back to their mother, who had all 

 the time sat still in the corner looking defiance at us. Cook 

 ventured to take up a chick just for the sake of feeling what it 

 was like, and up flew the hen in no time, and verily took the 

 piece out of her thumb. 



After this I had my own way with the Dorkings, no one 

 troubling me, indeed, I think they were afraid of the hen. I 



followed tho little boy's advice, which was to give them plenty, 

 but not too much. The hen was a good mother, and they grew 

 amazingly. I never before or since saw chickens grow at the 

 rate they did. All went on well until the little things — no 

 longer little, though — were five weeks old. I must say here 

 that I always shut them up for an hour in the middle of the 

 day, thus compelling rest. I went out about noon, only twelve 

 id to the call. Over and over again, I counted them, first 

 in grief, then in desperation ; through the garden, plantation, 

 and field I sought for hours and could not find it. What had 

 become of it? Had it been devoured by a dog? but then 

 dogs do not generally hurt fowls ; or had it been driven far 

 from its accustomed path and so knew not the way back ? or 

 had it been catapulted to death by some grammar-school boy 

 and left unbnried under some lonely hedge, perhaps left with 

 a laugh and a great shout of victory, for boys are wicked things. 

 It was a stormy day of wind and rain ; perhaps the little thing 

 had strayed beyond all reach of its mother's call, beyond all 

 reach of her hearing, and so come to some untimely end ; per- 

 haps in very agony it died of fright, as they say chickens will 

 do. It could not be found. I sought long after hope had 

 departed. 



Six weeks after this a poor lost chicken strayed one evening 

 when nearly dark into the yard, and lay down by the closed 

 door which opened into the little house where the Dorkings 

 slept. It was a chicken in size and appearance, and yet want- 

 ing all a chicken's life, and joy, and spirits ; a very nomad of 

 the lanes and hedges, or of some half-fed farmyard. " It is 

 one of your own," said papa, who was just coming in. 



•■ Oh, no, it is not, I locked up the twelve an hour ago ; they 

 are all right and safe." 



The door was unlocked, and we went in to make assurance 

 doubly sure. The chickens with a great bound followed. 



" Yes," he said, " it was your own, it could not have known 

 the way in else ; you are very careless, not fit to be trusted 

 with anything." 



I did not speak ; I was not heeding papa in the least. I 

 was only counting over the poor birds ; first by one's, then by 

 three's, and count them as I would they would not come an 

 even number. " There are thirteen of them, so it must be the 

 lost one come back. Where can it have been all this time ? 

 My poor lost birdie, how dirty and scared you look !" 



Papa laughed at the very idea ; then he would count them ; 

 so he did, over and over again, still they would be thirteen. 



Yes, it was indeed my poor lost chicken come back, and it 

 nestled close up to the others without fear, but did not seem 

 to like its mother. Had it been carried off that windy day — 

 stolen, and now brought back a sort of conscience gift ? or had 

 it picked up its living in the fields, sleeping in a tree, as they 

 say the birds do in Devonshire ? No, it was too fleshy for that. 



The principal thing in which it differed from the others was 

 in the dull, ruffled state of its feathers ; it looked like a piece 

 of soiled calico laid by the side of costly silk, for my birds 

 were bright and sleek, and. oh, so soft to handle, and, like most 

 Dorkings, sweet-tempered. 



About this time we sent away the black hen, for she was 

 beginning not to care much for her over-grown youngsters, and 

 they, on their part, often refused to obey her call, looking on 

 in lordly indifference, weighing more and standing higher 

 than their plebeian mother. They seemed, too, to be having 

 thoughts and fancies of their own — wonderments about the 

 world beyond the field and plantation, where they had scraped 

 and sought flies, and basked in the summer sunshine all their 

 lives. I began to be afraid lest, like Muscovy Ducks, they 

 should go away in a body and never come back, for they would 

 often spread out their large wings and carry themselves tip 

 into a tree, or to the top cf a wall, take a long survey, and 

 then come down with as much noise and swoop as a five-year- 

 old Peacock. I often think the come-back chicken must have 

 told strange stories of the rich feeding land outside the bound- 

 aries of their little domain, and so have filled their heads with 

 wild longings for the corn-fields browning on the hill sides, and 

 the fresh-ploughed fields where the dainty worms hid. They 

 grew restless, wandered up and down, scratching among the 

 flowers, taking a particular liking to a pansy-bed of mamma's. 

 Dear me ! how they did stamp and root up among them, break- 

 ing off whole heads of Clara Dean's and Lucy Brooksbank's. 

 Yes, they did all that papa said they would, and more, and we 

 were forced to go to a world of expense to enclose them. 



Then came the question, What was to be done with them ? 

 we did not need thirteen. Mamma offered me 3s. ahead fo)r 

 six, saying I should have plenty left. Cousin Walter said 1' 



