CROPS AND PROFITS. 189 



brood of eager chicklings, has found her way into 

 my hot-bed, and has utterly despoiled the most 

 cherished plants ; or a marauding drove of young 

 turkeys has cropped all the late cauliflowers, I am 

 madly bent upon extermination of the whole tribe. 



But reflection comes with a nice fresh egg to my 

 breakfast, or a delicate grilled fowl to my dinner and 

 the feathered people take a new lease of life. They 

 give a sociable, habitable air, moreover, to a country 

 dwelling. The contented, good-humored cluck of the 

 hens, breeds contentment in the on-looker. They are 

 rare philosophers, taking the world as they find it ; 

 now a blade of grass, now a lurking worm ; here a 

 stray kernel of grain, and there some tid-bit of a 

 butter-fly ; taking their siesta with a whig and a leg 

 stretched out in the sun, and like the rest of us, 

 warning away from their own feeding ground, birds 

 less strong than themselves, with an authoritative dab 

 of their bills. Although amenable to laws of habit, 

 traversing regular beats for their supply of wild 

 food, and collecting at regular hours for such as the 

 mistress may have to bestow, they are yet rebellious 

 against undue or extraordinary show of authority. 

 It is quite impossible to exercise any safe control 

 over the locality where the hens choose to execute 

 their maternal duties. They insist upon freedom of 

 the will in the matter, as obstreperously, and, I dare 



