Domestic Animals 133 



"You may boil potatoes, carrots, peas, beans, 

 cucumbers, and almost everything that grows in a 

 garden, but it is better to mix some meal with them, 

 though, and in the winter hens like the food warm. 

 They eat scraps and bits of meat, too, and father 

 gives our hens little stones that he calls gravel and 

 bits of broken oyster shells, and they eat them just 

 as they do corn. I asked him why, last night, and 

 he says hens haven't any teeth, and they eat these 

 things to help grind up their food." 



Miss Clare smiled approval, and John added: 

 "You need a hen-house that is snug and warm, 

 and a yard outside where they can run about. They 

 like grass to eat, and lettuce, cabbage, and chick- 

 weed. You must keep the house clean. Uncle 

 Frank whitewashes his hen-house inside every little 

 while. Hens like water to drink, and sour milk, 

 and they'll scratch in the dirt and eat the bugs and 

 worms that they find there." 



Then they learned the song by Mrs. Gaynor in 

 "Songs of the Child World," beginning "Mr. 

 Rooster wakes up early in the morning," and had 

 ^Esop's tale of " Cock-a-doodle and the Piece of 

 Gold." 



