“I have never taken any journey,” said she, “except the time I came here to live, and that was when I was only a Chicken. I do not remember much about it. I fluttered out of a crate that was being carried in a wagon, and ran around alone until I happened to find this place.”
“How sad!” exclaimed the Cock. “I hope you have had no such hard time since. They seem to have a good poultry-house here, although I have not yet been inside.”
“It is a good one,” said the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, “but I do not sleep in it these warm nights. I stay in a coop in my yard with my children.” As she spoke she looked lovingly down at the white flock around her feet. They were growing finely and already showed some small feathers on their wings.
“Oh!” exclaimed the Hens in the other yard. “Oh, what beautiful Chickens! So strong! So quick! So well-behaved! How long is it since you hatched them?”
“Well,” replied their mother, “I suppose I did not hatch them. I sat long enough on the nest and laid enough eggs, but the Man who owns the farm took away my eggs and brought me these Chickens. He has a sort of table down in his cellar which hatches out all the Chickens on the farm. I might just as well have saved myself all those tiresome days and nights of sitting if I had known how it would be.”
“That is a good thing to know,” said one of the new-comers. “On the farm from which we came, all the Chickens are hatched in that way. We never had a mother who was alive.”
“Not until after you were hatched I suppose,” remarked the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, who thought the other did not mean exactly what she had said.
“We had no real mother then,” said the White Plymouth Rock Hen. “There were so many of us that we had to get along without. The Man who owned us had a lot of things to take the place of mothers. They were made of wood and some soft stuff and he used to set them around in the yards on pleasant days. We ate the food and drank the water that were brought to us, and then we played around in the grass near the make-believe mothers. When we were tired or cold we crawled under them and cuddled down, and when we were scared we did the same way. We were very well cared for by the Men, and we all grew to be strong and healthy fowls, but I sometimes wish that we could have had a live mother to snuggle under and to love.”
The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen was greatly surprised. “I think it is well to save the Hens having to hatch out the broods,” she said, “but they should be willing to care for the Chickens. There is nothing quite so good as a live mother.”
Another Plymouth Rock Hen strolled up. “I have been in the pen and the scratching-shed,” said she, “and I think them delightful.”