IF YOU HAD WINGS 



clothes, then he will have to go without until the 

 time fora new suit comes; for Mother Nature won 

 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 



