NOVEMBER 1, 1914 



869 



ouM m 



We be brethren.- — Gkn. 13:8. 



Peace on earth, good will to men. — Luke 2:14. 



Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. — Luke 

 10:27. 



In honor preferring one another. — Romans 12 : 

 10. 



By this shall all men know that ye are my disci- 

 ples, if ye have love one to another. — John 13:35. 



Our eldest daughter, Mrs. Calvert, always 

 has " good luck " with chickens. She sticks 

 to the Barred Plymouth Rocks, while the 

 four other children have all sorts. Some 

 of them have paid large sums of money for 

 the best grades of the ditferent varieties of 

 fowls. But Mrs. Calvert gets the eggs ; and 

 even while her hens are moulting, they al- 

 ways lay more or less; and when the neigh- 

 bors are out of eggs they can always get 

 some of Mrs. Calvert. 1 hardly need tell 

 you that the secret of this is that Mrs. 

 Calvert's hens are always well fed and 

 eared for. They never suffer for the lack 

 of water. They know her, and she knows 

 them. I think I might say they love her, 

 and she loves them, and therefore she gets 

 the eggs. There is one other daughter (I 

 will not tell which one it is) who also keeps 

 chickens, or her husband does — that is, he 

 keejDS them after a fashion. I do not think 

 he will get mad even if he should happen 

 to read this, for he is a great big good- 

 natured sort of fellow. Well, he is some- 

 times away from home, and the hired girl 

 is expected to look after the chickens. Now, 

 do not imagine that I am reflecting on hired 

 girls as a whole when I say this, for some 

 of the best friends I have in the world are 

 hired girls. 



Let me now digress a little, as I often do. 



When I first became acquainted with Mrs. 

 Root, when she was fifteen years old, her 

 good father did not take much of a fancy 

 to my jjoor eccentric self; but as years 

 passed, and I showed him the microscope 

 (microscopes were a hobby with me at the 

 time) he began to take more kindly to me; 

 and after Mrs. Root and I were engaged 

 he once volunteered something as follows 

 in regard to the young lady. Said he : 



" Mr. Root, you may be sure that no 

 person nor any domestic animal will ever 

 go hungry when Susan is around. Her 

 special forte is to see that every thing is 

 well fed and comfortable, etc." 



He might also have added they will have 

 plenty of good water to drink. 



I have told you how Mrs. Root " gets 

 mad " when she cannot have plenty of good 

 pure air. Well, it is so in regard to good 

 pure cold water ; and one of her hobbies is 



(hat the domestic animals shall have plenty 

 of good water. If the horses are tired and 

 thirsty she keeps urging us to stop and 

 give them drink. If the chickens act uneasy 

 as if they wanted something, she will say, 

 " Are you sure they have plenty of good 

 water? " 



Not long ago a pen of Rhode Island Reds 

 not very far from cur home rushed up to the 

 poultry-netting fence when she happened 

 to be near the yard, and acted as if they 

 wanted something. She crossed over to the 

 neighbor's, looked in the fowls' water-pail, 

 and found it was entirely empty, and had 

 been so, nobody knows how long. The 

 folks had forgotten all about the chickens; 

 and, although they have a larger flock than 

 Mrs. Calvert, if is the same old complaint — 

 " the hens don't lay."* 



May be you think, friends, that since I 

 am within a few days of being 75 years 

 old, I have forgotten myself, and put that 

 string of texts over the Poultry Depart- 

 ment; but don't you worry. I will get to 

 the texts in due time. But I have not got 

 through with pouitiy yet. Our chickens are 

 down in Florida. We do not keep any here 

 in Ohio, so we have to buy our eggs; and 

 the place to get them, as the neighbors all 

 agree, is of Mrs. Calvert. She not only has 

 some eggs to spar 3, but they are larger eggs 

 than any other eggs in our neighborhood, 

 always fresh and fine flavored, and, as a 

 matter of course, Mrs. Root went over to 

 get another dozeii eggs, and the conversa- 

 tion was something as follows: 



As this is moulting time, eggs are up in 

 price. They are quoted at 27 cents. That 

 is what the gTocers pay. They pay 27 and 

 sell for 30. So Mrs. Root tendered her 

 daughter 30 cents for a dozen eggs; but 

 Maude said : 



" Oh ! no, mother. Eggs are quoted at 

 only 27 cents, and I am not going to take 

 more than that." 



" But," replied Mrs. Root, " the 27 cents 

 is wholesale. If we go to the grocers we 

 have to pay 30 cents, and even then we do 

 not get eggs like vours here. You keep the 

 30 cents." 



* While reading the proof of the above it just 

 occurs to me that there are two things I failed to 

 mention. The first is, that when Mrs. Root carried 

 them a pail of nice fresh clean water they drank and 

 drank and drank, as if they never would get enough 

 nice cold water. The second point I started out to 

 make is that the daughter Maude is a " chip of the 

 old block." (Recall what the good book says about 

 the " third and fourth generations.") May the Lord 

 be praised for the promising " chips " that our 

 good mothers have scattered throughout our land, 

 and, I trust, throughout the whole wide world. 



