P O U L T K Y. 135 



putting her master at defiance. But alas ! the very 

 next day Patrick waked me at daylight to announce 

 that the fowls were &quot; all dead entirely.&quot; 



After a vain attempt to understand him, I hurried 

 on my clothes, and, rushing to the coop where they 

 were accustomed to roost, found it empty, and their 

 murdered corpses scattered about in every direction. 

 The small wounds, the unruffled feathers, the univer 

 sal massacre, showed that a mink had done the deed. 

 My chickens, my rare and valuable chickens, that 

 were to have laid so many eggs and raised such 

 countless posterity ; the roosters, that were to have 

 been fathers of a long line of famous descendants ; 

 the hens, that were to have been models of matronly 

 propriety and parental self-sacrifice ; my pets, that I 

 had raised through so many dangers, that I had saved 

 from one neighbor s flock and another neighbor s 

 pups ; my profits, that were to have put the author 

 of &quot; Ten Acres Enough&quot; to silence, were cut off for 

 ever. Golden visions of eggs were destroyed; an 

 ticipations of tender spring broilers were disappoint 

 ed ; my quarter of a million of prospective profits- 

 all were annihilated together by a mink. 



We killed that mink. Like Oliver Twist, he re 

 turned for more, and met his fate. I had him stuffed, 

 for one mink-skin is certainly a curious result from 

 an investment of twenty pairs of chickens. 



