THE FIRST SPRING CHICKENS ARE HATCHED

It was only a few days after the new family settled in the house that the Man drove out from town with a queer-looking box-like thing in his light wagon. This he took out and left on the ground beside the cellarway. When he had unharnessed Brownie and let him loose in the pasture, he came back and took the crate off from the box. Then the poultry who were standing around saw that it was not at all an ordinary box. Indeed, as soon as the Man had fastened a leg to each corner, they thought it rather more like a fat table than a box.

While the Man was examining it, he kept turning over the pages of a small book which he took from some place inside the table. The Geese thought it quite a senseless habit of the Man's, this looking at books when he was at work. They had never seen the Farmer do so, and they did not understand it. When Geese do not understand anything, you know, they always decide that it is very silly and senseless. There are a great many things which they do not understand, so, of course, there are a great many which they think extremely silly.

The Little Girls and their mother stood beside the Man as he looked at the book and the fat new table. He said something to one of them and she went into the house. When she came out she had a small basketful of eggs. The Man took some and put them into one part of the table.

Then he took them out again and put them into the basket. That disgusted the Brown Hen, who was watching it all.

"I am always fair," she said, "and I am willing to say that I have been treated very well by this Man, very well indeed, but it is most distressing and unpleasant to a sensible fowl like myself to have to see so much utter foolishness on a farm where I have spent my life."

"Then why don't you shut your eyes?" asked the Shanghai c.o.c.k, with his usual rudeness, and after that the Brown Hen could say nothing more.

This was a great relief to the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, who did not at all understand what was going on, but would have tried to defend the Man if the Brown Hen had asked her about it.

After a while the Woman helped the Man carry the queer-looking object into the cellar, and then the poultry strolled off to talk it all over. They heard nothing more about the fat table until the next morning. Then the Gander, who had been standing for a long time close to the cellarway, waddled off toward the barn with the news. "They use that table to keep eggs in," said he. "Now isn't that just like the Man? I saw him put in a great many eggs, and he took them all out of little cases which he brought from town this morning. I don't see why a Man should bring eggs out from town, when he can get plenty in the barn by hunting for them. Do you?"

"He won't find any of mine in the barn," said a Hen Turkey. "I lay one every day, but I never put them there." When she had finished speaking, she looked around to see if the Gobbler had heard her.

Luckily he had not. If he had, he would have tried to find and break her eggs.

"That was not the only silly thing the Man did," said the Gander, who intended to tell every bit of news he had, in spite of interruptions.

"Probably not," said the White c.o.c.k, who was feeling badly that morning, and so thought the world was all wrong.

"No indeed," said the Gander, raising his voice somewhat, so that the poultry around might know he had news of importance to tell. "No indeed! The Man marked every egg with a sort of stick, which he took from his pocket. It was sharp at both ends, and sometimes he marked with one end and sometimes with the other. He put a black mark on one side of each egg and a red mark on the other."

"Red!" exclaimed the Gobbler. "Ugh!"

"Yes, red," said the Gander. "But the worst and most stupid part of it all was when he lighted a little fire in something that he had and fastened it onto the table."

"What a shame!" cried all the Geese together. "It will burn up those eggs, and every fowl knows that it takes time to get a good lot of them together. He may not have thought of that. He cannot know very much, for he probably never lived on a farm before. He may think that eggs are to be found in barns exactly as stones are found in fields."

All this made the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen very sad. She could not help believing what she had heard, and still she hoped they might yet find out that the Man had a good reason for marking and then burning up those eggs. She was glad to think that none of hers were in the lot. She was not saving them for Chickens just then, but she preferred to think of them as being eaten by the Little Girls or the fat Baby who lived in the house. She decided to begin saving for a brood of Chickens at once. She wanted to say something kind about the Man, or explain what he was doing when he lighted that fire. However, she could not, so she just kept her bill tightly shut and said nothing at all. This also showed that she was a fine Hen, for the best people would rather say nothing at all about others than to say unkind things.

It was a long time before the friendly Barred Plymouth Rock Hen knew what was going on in the cellar. She was greatly discouraged about the Man. She had tried as hard as she could to make the other poultry believe in him, and had thought she was succeeding, but now this foolishness about the fat table and the eggs seemed likely to spoil it all. She found a good place for laying, in a corner of the carriage house on some old bags, and there she put all her eggs. She had decided to raise a brood of Chickens and take comfort with them, leaving the Man to look out for himself as well as he could. She still believed in him, but she was discouraged.

Several of the other Hens also stole nests and began filling them, so on the day when the Man hunted very thoroughly for eggs and found these stolen nests, taking all but one egg from each, there were five exceedingly sad Hens. You would think they might have been discouraged, yet they were not. A Hen may become discouraged about anything else in the world, but if she wants to sit, she sticks to it.

That very day was an exciting one in the cellar. When the Man came down after breakfast to look at the eggs in the fat table he found them all as he had left them, with the black-marked side uppermost. He took them out to air for a few minutes, and then began putting them back with the red-marked side uppermost. As he lifted them, he often put one to his ear, or held it up to the light. He had handled the eggs over in this way twice a day for about three weeks. A few of them had small breaks in the sh.e.l.l, and through one of these breaks there stuck out the tiny beak of an unhatched Chicken. When he found an egg that was cracked, or one in which there seemed to be a faint tap-tap-tapping, he put it apart from the others.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RETURNED WITH THE BABY IN HIS ARMS. _Page 37_]

When this was done, the Man ran up the inside stairs. In a few minutes he returned with the Baby in his arms and the rest of the family following. The Woman had her sleeves rolled up and flour on her ap.r.o.n.

The Little Girls were dressed in the plain blue denim frocks which they wore all the time, except when they went to town. Then all five of them watched the cracked eggs, and saw the tiny Chickens who were inside chip away the sh.e.l.l and get ready to come out into the great world. The Woman had to leave first, for there came a hissing, bubbling sound from the kitchen above, which made her turn and run up-stairs as fast as she could.

Then what a time the Man had! The Baby in his arms kept jumping and reaching for the struggling Chickens, and the two Little Girls could hardly keep their hands away from them. "Let me help just one get out of his sh.e.l.l," said the brown-haired Little Girl. "It is _so_ hard for such small Chickens."

"No," said the Man, and he said it very patiently, although they had already been begging like this for some time. "No, you must not touch one of them. If you were Hens, you would know better than to want to do such a thing. If you should take the sh.e.l.l off for a Chicken, he would either die or be a very weak little fellow. Before long each will have a fine round doorway at the large end of his sh.e.l.l, through which he can slip out easily."

Some of the Chickens worked faster than others, and some had thin sh.e.l.ls to break, while others had quite thick ones, so when the first Chicken was safely out many had not even poked their bills through. As soon as the first was safely hatched, the Man took away the broken sh.e.l.l and closed the fat table again. Then he waved his hat at the Little Girls and said "Shoo! Shoo!" until they laughed and ran out-of-doors.

All that day there were tiny Chickens busy in the incubator (that was what the Man called the fat table), working and working and working to get out of their sh.e.l.ls. Each was curled up in a tight bunch inside, and one would almost think that he could not work in such a position.

However, each had his head curled around under his left wing, and pecked with it there. Then, too, as he worked, each pushed with his feet against the sh.e.l.l, and so turned very slowly around and around inside it. That gave him a chance, you see, to peck in a circle and so break open a round doorway. As they came out, the Chickens nestled close to each other or ran around a bit and got acquainted, talking in soft little "Cheep-cheep-cheeps."

They were very happy Chickens, for they were warm and had just about light enough for eyes that had seen no light at all until that day. It is true that they had no food, but one does not need food when first hatched, so it is not strange that they were happy. It is also true that they had no mother, yet even that did not trouble them, for they knew nothing at all about mothers. Probably they thought that Chickens were always hatched in incubators and kept warm by lamps.

The next morning, when the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen was sitting on her one egg in the carriage house, thinking sadly of her friend, the Man, that same Man came slowly up to her. The Little Girls were following him, and when they reached the doorway they stood still with their toes on a mark which the Man had made. They wanted very much to see what he was about to do, yet they minded, and stood where they had been told, although they did bend forward as far as they could without tumbling over.

The Man knelt in front of the sitting Hen, and gently uncovered the basket he held. The Hen could hardly believe her ears, for she heard the soft "cheep-cheep-cheep" of newly hatched Chickens. She tried to see into the basket. "There! There!" said the Man, "I have brought you some children." Then he lifted one at a time and slipped it into her nest, until she had twelve beautiful downy white Chickens there.

"Well! Well! Well!" clucked the Hen. And she could not think of another thing to say until the Man had gone off to the barn. He had taken her egg, but she did not care about that. All she wanted was those beautiful Chickens. She fluffed up her feathers and spread out her wings until she covered the whole twelve, and then she was the happiest fowl on the place. The Man came back to put food and water where she could reach both without leaving her nest, and even then she could think of nothing to say.

After he went away, a friend came strolling through the open doorway.

This Hen was also sitting, but had come off the nest to stretch her legs and find food. It was a warm April day, and she felt so certain that the eggs would not chill, that she paused to chat.

"Such dreadful luck!" she cackled. "You must never try to make me think that this Man is friendly. He has left me only one of the eggs I had laid, and now I have to start all over for a brood of Chickens, or else give up. The worst of it is that I feel as though I could not lay any more for a while."

"Don't be discouraged," said the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen. "I had only one egg to sit on last night, and this morning I have a whole brood of Chickens."

"Where did they come from?" asked the visiting Hen, in great excitement.

"That is what I don't know," replied the happy mother. "The Man brought them to me just now, and put food and water beside my nest. I have asked and asked them who their mother was, and they say I am the first Hen they ever saw. Of course that cannot be so, for Chickens are not blind at first, like Kittens, but it is very strange that they cannot remember about the Hen who hatched them. They say that there were many more Chickens where they came from, but no Hen whatever."

The White c.o.c.k stood in the doorway. "Do you know where my Chickens were hatched?" asked the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen.

"Do I know?" said he, pausing to loosen some mud from one of his feet (he did not understand the feelings of a mother, or he would have answered at once). "I saw the Man bring a basketful of Chickens over this way a while ago. He got them from the cellar. The door was open and I stood on it. Of course I was not hanging around to find out what he was doing. I simply happened to be there, you understand."

"Yes, we understand all about it," said the Hens, who knew the White c.o.c.k as well as anybody.

"I happened to be there," he repeated, "and I saw the Man take the Chickens out of the fat table. There was no Hen in sight. It must be a machine for hatching Chickens. I think it is dreadful if the Chickens on this farm have to be hatched in a cellar, without Hens. Everything is going wrong since the Farmer left."

The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen and her caller looked at each other without speaking. They remembered hearing the White c.o.c.k talk in that way before the Farmer left. He was one of those fowls who are always discontented.

"I am going back to my nest," said the visiting Hen. "Perhaps the Man will bring me some Chickens too."

The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen sat on her nest in the carriage house, eating and drinking when she wished, and cuddling her children under her feathers. She was very happy, and thought it a beautiful world. "I would rather have had them gray," she said to herself, "but if they couldn't be gray, I prefer white. They are certainly Plymouth Rock Chickens anyway, and the color does not matter, if they are good."

She stood up carefully and took a long look at her family. "I couldn't have hatched out a better brood myself," she said. "It is a queer thing for tables to take to hatching Chickens, but if that is the way it is to be done on this farm, it will save me a great deal of time and be a good thing for my legs. It is lucky that this Man came here.

The Farmer who left would never have thought of making a table sit on eggs and hatch them."

THE MAN BUILDS A POULTRY-HOUSE

It would be wrong to say that all the poultry on the farm really liked the Man. The White c.o.c.k and the Brown Hen had never been known really to approve of anybody, and the Shanghai c.o.c.k was not given to saying pleasant things of people. However, the Man certainly had more and more friends among the fowls on the place, and when the White c.o.c.k and the Brown Hen wanted to say what they thought of his ways, they had to go off together to some far-away corner where they could not be overheard. If they did not do this, they were quite certain to be asked to talk about something else.

The five Hens who had had Chickens given to them were his firmest friends. It is true that each of them had really been on the nest long enough to hatch out Chickens of her own, yet they saw that another time they would be saved the long and weary sitting. They remembered, too, the Man's thoughtfulness in putting food and water where they could reach it easily on that first day, when they disliked so much to leave their families. They had spoken of this to the Gander, and had tried to make him change his mind about the fat table in the cellar. They might exactly as well have talked to a feed-cutter.