The Road to Dumbiedykes 



by his side on every hen-roost. In 

 brief, the owl of world-wide nocturnal 

 celebrity has little on the gallinacious 

 male. Roosters may settle down 

 amidst their wives for a time. Pos- 

 sibly they may stand it until after the 

 midnight hour has struck, but after 

 that let any one bird in any old place 

 in any community where poultry abide 

 send out his challenge, and it's all off 

 at once, so far as the further keeping 

 of the peace in the henneries of that 

 particular neighborhood is concerned. 

 I once spent a short vacation at Bon 

 Air in the edge of the beautiful little 

 city of Augusta, Georgia, and I am 

 prepared to assert that nowhere else 

 in all the world — so far as my experi- 

 ence in two hemispheres extends — are 

 there so many roosters working on the 

 night shift and overtime as in the sub- 

 urbs of that winter capital. Why 

 these Augustan cocks kept up their 

 clarion calls so lustily and persistently 

 I never knew. Possibly there was a 

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