“For law's sake, Pap,” she said, “what kind o' hen-food is that? It's blue!”
“Yes,” said Pap, looking at it closely, “it IS blue, ain't it? It's a mixture of my own. I ain't been raisin' hens off an' on fer forty year for nothin'. You got to study the hen, Sally, and think about her. Why don't a hen lay in cold weather? 'Cause the weather makes the hen cold. This will make her warm. You jist try it. Give 'em a spoonful apiece an' I reckon they'll lay. It don't look like much, but I bet you anything it'll make them hens lay.”
“I don't believe it,” she snapped, “and I'll hold you to that bet, sure's my names Briggs.” But the next day she gave them the allotted portion.
That evening when Pap Briggs knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose from his seat in Billings' store, he said, “Billings, have you got some mainly fresh eggs—eggs you kin recommend?”
“Yes, I have,” said Billings, with a grin. “So your hen-food don't work, Pap?”
Pap chuckled.
“It's a-workin,” he said, “and you can give me a dozen o' them eggs. And, say, you need't tell Sally.”
Billings laughed. “I'm on,” he said.
Pap put the bag of eggs back of the cracker-box, and put three of them in his pocket.
When he reached home he quietly slipped around the house and deposited the three eggs in three nests, and went it.