Tales of a Poultry Farm

by Clara Dillingham Pierson

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 Cock, 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.