He also told his mother that they were no good to photograph.
“You mean that they won’t pose?” she asked.
“Oh, it isn’t that! They’ll pose if you tie their legs. But they haven’t any front view to their faces,—only a right and wrong side.”
A few days later when Mrs. Wood was coming up the street, she saw people stop in front of her house, look down at their feet, and then go off laughing. She hurried home, and found this sign tacked in the middle of the sidewalk.
FOR SALE!
ONE LARGE, HANDSOME
PLYMOUTH-ROCK ROOSTER,
AND HIS FINE FAMILY OF LAYING HENS.
CHEAP! INQUIRE WITHIN.
Mrs. Wood took up the notice, and went in to tell Franklin that his cousins, Mary and Wyman Bates, had offered to buy his hens. She had been calling on their mother that afternoon, who said that the family had decided to raise their own fresh eggs, and would be delighted to begin with chickens who were, in a way, related to them.
So the next day Mary and Wyman came down with their man and a cart, and took off most of the hens. John Alden did not go, because, at the last minute, Franklin decided that he could not part with him, and Wyman himself admitted that he would quite as soon have a rooster with the usual number of eyes.
Eunice’s bantam Flossy also remained to keep Johnny company, and as he was very fond of her, he never missed his other wives at all, or if he did, he never mentioned it. And as Johnny had always been such a staid, gentlemanly old bird, Mrs. Wood went to bed that night feeling that all her troubles were over.