Tales of a Poultry Farm Part 6

"One has to at times," said the c.o.c.k, politely, for he saw that the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen wished him to like her friends. "When you can," he added, "tell him that I would like to meet him. I suppose we shall not be allowed to go out of our own yard, but he can come up to the fence. And send the others also. We would like to meet our new neighbors."

"I will," replied the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, as she clucked to her Chickens. "Good-by. I see that we have fresh food coming."

While her children were feeding she pretended to eat, pecking every now and then at the food, and chatting softly with them as they ate.

There was always much to say about their manners at such times, and she had to use both of her eyes to make sure that they did not trample on the food. She also had to remind them often about wiping their bills on the gra.s.s when they had finished. She could not bear to see a Chicken running around with mush on the sides of his bill.

When they had eaten all they wished and ran away to play, she ate what was left and sat down to think. "I would like to be white," she said to herself. "I would certainly like to be white, and live in style with those fowls who have just come. It must be lovely to be so important that one is taken riding on the cars and lifted around carefully in crates."

Then she remembered how they had spoken of their legs aching, and how glad they were to be free on the gra.s.s once more. "I don't know that I would really care about travelling," she added, "but I would like to live in such style with a lot of fowls of my own family."

She remembered what the c.o.c.k had said about their having to stay in their own yard, and she added, "But I would not want to have to stay always in the same place."

She thought a little while longer and laughed aloud. "I believe that I would really rather be just what I happen to be," said she. "I don't know why I never thought of that before."

You can see that she was a most sensible Hen. Many fowls never stop to think that if they were to change places with others, they would have to stand the unpleasant as well as the pleasant part of the change.

The little white Chickens came crowding up to their gray mother. "Tell us what made you laugh," they said. "Please tell us."

Her small round eyes twinkled. "I was laughing," she said, "just because I am myself and not somebody else."

"We don't see anything very funny about that," they exclaimed. "Who else could you be?"

The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen sent them off to chase a b.u.t.terfly, and went to call on her nearest neighbor. "I would like to tell them," she said, "but they are too young to understand it yet."

THE TURKEY CHICKS ARE HATCHED

Spring was always an anxious time for the Hen Turkeys who wanted to raise broods. Raising children is hard work and brings many anxieties with it. The mother is so much afraid that they will take cold, or eat too much, or not get enough to eat, or take something that is not good for children. There is also the fear that they may be careless and have some dreadful accident. And, worst of all, there is always the fear that they may be naughty and grow up the wrong sort of people.

These cares all mothers have, but the Turkey mothers have another care which is really very hard to stand, for the Gobblers do not like their children and will try in every way to prevent the eggs from hatching.

If a Gobbler sees one of the Hen Turkeys laying an egg, he will break the egg, and if he meets a flock of tiny Turkey Chicks he will peck and hurt, perhaps even kill, all that he can of them. That is why the Hen Turkeys on the farm had always been in the habit of stealing away to lay their eggs in some secret place. One had even raised a fine brood in the middle of a nettle-patch the year before. She had slipped away from her friends and from the Gobbler day after day until she had laid thirteen eggs, and then had begun sitting. She had to sit as long as the Ducks do, and that is for twenty-eight days. You can imagine how tired she became, and how many times she had kept very still, hardly daring to move a feather, because she heard the Gobbler near and feared he would find and break her precious eggs.

Now she began to feel like laying, and walked off to the nettle-patch once more. She thought that having had such good luck there before was a reason for trying it again. She had hardly laid her fine large egg there when the Man came softly along and picked her up by the legs.

She flapped her wings and craned her head as far upwards as she could, yet he did not loosen his hold on her. He carried her carefully, but he carried her just the same.

When he reached the poultry-house, he put her in a pen by herself.

Then he went off to the farmhouse with her newly laid egg in his pocket. You can imagine how sad she felt. If there is one thing that a Hen Turkey likes better than taking long walks, it is raising Turkey Chicks. In spite of the weariness and the anxiety, she is very fond of it. And now this one found herself shut in and without her egg. It is true that, besides the pen, she could go into the scratching-shed and the big yard, yet even then there was the wired netting between her and the great world, and her friends were on the other side of the fence. She was just wondering if she could not fly over the fence and be free, when the Man returned and cut some of the long feathers from her right wing. Then she knew that she could not fly at all.

The Man next made a fine nest of hay in a good-sized box, placing it in the shed and putting an egg into it. The Hen Turkey first thought that it was her own egg, but when the Man left and she could come nearer, she found that it was not. Instead, it was different from any she had ever seen. She tried sitting on it. "It feels all right," she said in her gentle and plaintive voice. "If I am still here when I want to lay another, I will use this nest."

In spite of her loneliness and sadness, the Hen Turkey managed to keep brave during the days that followed. The Man gave her plenty of good corn and clean water, and she had many visits with the Hens and their Chickens who lived in the pen next to hers and ran about all day in their yard. Of course she did not think them so interesting as Turkey Chicks, yet she liked to watch them and visit with them between the wires. It made her want a brood of her own even more than ever.

She still laid eggs right along, and the Man took each away soon after it was laid. She feared that he took them to eat, but the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen said that he might be giving them to the table to hatch, and that she should not worry. "I had just such a time myself,"

she added, "and it all came out right. You see if he does not bring you some fine Turkey Chicks soon."

This always cheered the Hen Turkey for a time, but even if it were to be so, she thought, she would prefer to hatch her own eggs. She did not know that the Man had every one of hers in a basket in a dry, warm place in the house, and was turning each over carefully every day.

This he did to keep them in the best possible way until there should be a nestful for her to sit on.

Sometimes the Gobbler and the two other Hen Turkeys came up to the fence to visit with her. They never stayed long, because they came of a restless and wandering family, yet it did her good to have chats with them, even if they walked back and forth part of the time as they talked. The Gobbler paid very little attention to her. He told her once that the Hen Turkeys who were foolish enough to try to raise broods deserved to be shut up and have their wings clipped. She had better visits with her sisters when he was not there to listen. One of them told her that she had several eggs hidden under a sumach bush in a fence corner. The other said that she was trying to decide on a nesting-place; she couldn't choose between a corner of the lower meadow and the edge of the woods. Both of them spoke very softly, and frequently looked over toward where the Gobbler was strutting in the suns.h.i.+ne. They were much afraid that he would hear.

When her sisters walked away, the Hen Turkey in the yard felt sadder than ever. She strolled back into the shed and tried to think of something pleasant to do. She had not laid an egg for two days, and she was very lonely. You can imagine how pleased and happy she was to see eleven fine Turkey eggs lying in her nest. The queer egg which she had not laid was gone, and she felt certain that those there were all her own. She got on the nest at once, and found that she could exactly cover them. "How lucky!" she thought. "If there were another one it would be too many and I could not keep it warm."

She did not know she had laid fifteen eggs, and that the Man had taken the other four down cellar to be hatched by the incubator. She thought it just luck that there were precisely enough. She did not know the Man had read in one of his books that a Hen Turkey can safely cover only eleven eggs. There are several things better than luck, you see.

Willingness to study is one and willingness to work is another. This Man had both kinds of willingness, and it was well for his poultry that he had.

There is not much to be told about the days that pa.s.sed before the first Turkey Chick chipped the sh.e.l.l. The sun shone into the open front of the shed for twenty-eight days, and the patient Hen Turkey was there, sitting on her nest. The moon shone into the shed for many nights, and she was still there. The moon could not s.h.i.+ne in for twenty-eight nights for two reasons. Sometimes it set too early, and sometimes the nights were cloudy and wet, although none of the days were.

When it rained the Turkey was the happiest. She did not like wet weather at all. It was for this reason she was happy. Every shower reminded her how wet it must be out in the nettle-patch, and made her think how cosy and happy she was in the place which the Man had made ready for her.

Then came the joyous day on which ten little Turkey Chicks chipped the sh.e.l.l. They were very promising children, quite the finest, their mother thought, that she had ever seen. There was only one sad thing about the day, and that was not having the eleventh egg hatch. The Turkey Hen was too happy with her ten children to spend much time in thinking of the other which she had hoped to have, but she could not help remembering once in a while, and then she became very sad.

It was not until the next morning that the ten little ones began to eat and to run around. Young Turkeys do not eat at all the first day, you know, but they always make up for it afterwards.

When the Hen Turkey walked out of the shed with her family, the Hens in the next yard crowded to the fence to see them. The little White Plymouth Rocks could not understand for a long time why the Turkey Chicks should be so large. "It isn't fair," they said. "Those Turkey Chicks will be grown up long before we are!" They thought that to be grown up was the finest thing in the world.

The Hens were very friendly and chatted long about them, telling the fond mother how very slender their necks were and how neat their little feet looked, with the tiny webs coming half-way to the tips of their toes. "I am very glad for you," said the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen. "I was sure that it would all come out right in the end. This Man takes excellent care of his poultry."

After a while the Gobbler came strutting past. When he saw his children, he stood his feathers on end and dragged his wings on the ground. He was exceedingly angry, and would have liked it very well if they had been on his side of the fence.

"Ugly little things!" he said to their mother. "They will tag around after you all the rest of the summer."

"Very well," she replied. "I shall like to have them."

"Silly--silly--silly!" said the Gobbler, as he strutted off.

The Hen Turkey's sisters came walking slowly toward her. Both of them were sitting on eggs, and had left their nests for a few minutes to find food. Of course they could not make a long call. "I built in the edge of the woods after all," said the one who had been so undecided.

"I wanted you to know, but don't tell anybody else, or the Gobbler may hear of it and find the nest." Then she spoke of the ten Turkey Chicks and asked the other sister to notice how much they looked like their mother. After that they had to hurry back to their nests.

When the Hen Turkey called her Chicks to cuddle down for the night, she found four already in the shed, eating from the food-dish.

"I thought you were all outside with me," she remarked. "Why did you come in here?"

"We couldn't help ourselves," said they. "Some very large creature brought us here just now. We came from a darker place than this."

The mother was very much puzzled. She knew that she had not hatched them, and that they could not belong to her sisters, who had begun sitting after she did. There was no way of taking them to any other place for the night, so she decided to do the kind thing and care for them herself. She was quite right in this. One is never sorry for having done the kind thing, you know, but one is very often sorry for having done the unkind thing. "Crawl right under my wings," said she, "and cuddle down with these other Turkey Chicks. I will try to cover you all."

She managed very well and the night was warm, so that although a few of the Chicks were not wholly covered all the time, they got along very comfortably indeed. By the next morning the mother loved the four as much as she did her own ten. "It really doesn't matter in the least who hatched them," she said, "or even who laid the eggs. They need a mother and I can love them all. It would be a shame if I couldn't stretch my wings a little more for the sake of covering them." She never knew that they had been hatched in the incubator from the four eggs which she had laid, but which the Man had thought she could not cover. You see she was really adopting her own children without knowing it.

Turkey mothers are hungry creatures, and do not understand that they should not eat the hard-boiled eggs which are the best food for their Chicks when very small. So the Man had either to shut this mother in the shed and place the food for the Chicks outside, where she could not reach it, or else find some other way of keeping it from her. He thought a Turkey who had sat so closely on her nest for four weeks should be allowed to stretch, so he put the food for the children in a coop and left the mother free. The little ones could run in and out whenever they wanted to eat, and the mother had plenty of corn and water outside, so they were all well cared for and happy. The Gobbler said unkind things to them each time he pa.s.sed, but they were too happy and sensible to mind that very much, and it did not seem long before the Chicks' tail-and wing-feathers were showing through their down, and they were given porridge and milk instead of hard-boiled egg. This made them feel that they were growing up very fast indeed, and they kept stretching their tiny wings and looking around at their funny little tails to watch their feathers lengthen.

On the day when they had their first porridge, their aunts and their newly hatched cousins were brought in to share their yard with them.

You can imagine what happy times they all had, playing together and visiting through the wire fence with their next-door neighbors, the White Plymouth Rock Chickens.

The Gobbler used to pa.s.s by and try to make them and their mothers unhappy by telling them of the pleasure they missed by being shut up.

"There is fine food in the lower meadow," he said, "and the upper one is even better. There are delicious Bugs to be found by the side of the road. But these are for me, and not for silly Hen Turkeys and their good-for-nothing Chicks."