IF YOU HAD WINGS 35 



clothes, then he will have to go without until the 

 time fora new suit comes; for Mother Nature won't 

 patch them up as your mother patches up yours. 



But now this is what I want you to notice and 

 think about : that just as an apple falls according 

 to a great law of Nature, so a bird's feathers fall ac- 

 cording to a law of Nature. The moon is appointed 

 for seasons ; the sun knoweth his going down ; and 

 so light and insignificant a thing as a bird's feather 

 not only is appointed to grow in a certain place at a 

 certain time, but also knoweth its falling off. 



Nothing could look more haphazard, certainly, 

 than the way a hen's feathers seem to drop off at 

 moulting time. The most forlorn, undone, abject 

 creature about the farm is the half-moulted hen. 

 There is one in the chicken-yard now, so nearly 

 naked that she really is ashamed of herself, and so 

 miserably helpless that she squats in a corner all 

 night, unable to reach the low poles of the roost. It 

 is a critical experience with the hen, this moulting 

 of her feathers ; and were it not for the protection 

 of the yard it would be a fatal experience, so easily 

 could she be captured. Nature seems to have no 

 hand in the business at all ; if she has, then what a 

 mess she is making of it! 



But pick up the hen, study the falling of the 

 feathers carefully, and lo! here is law and order, 

 every feather as important to Nature as a star, every 

 quill as a planet, and the old white hen as mightily 



