Tales of a Poultry Farm

by Clara Dillingham Pierson

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 sunshine. 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 passed before the first Turkey Chick chipped the shell. 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 shine 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 shell. 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.