The Adventures of a Suburbanite

by Ellis Parker Butler

I never saw two men so anxious to have a neighbour keep chickens. They were willing to let me have almost everything my own way. It was quite a strain on me, for I had to think of a new objection to their plans every day or so, but I could see the suspense was harder on Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington. Every morning they came and hung over my fence wistfully, and every evening they came over and talked chickens, and on the train to town they spoke freely of the chickens they were going to keep. In a month they were talking of the chickens they were keeping, and bragging about them; and old-seasoned chicken raisers used to hunt them up and sit with them and ask for information on knotty points.

Toward fall Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington were beginning to talk about the large sums of money they were making out of their chickens, and promising settings of their White Orpington and White Wyandotte eggs to the commuters, and they began to be really annoying. They would stand at the fence, hollow-eyed and hungry-looking, staring into my yard, and when I passed they would make slighting remarks about me and the lack of decision in my character. They said sneeringly that they did not believe I would ever get any chickens.

“You, Millington, and you, Rolfs,” I said firmly, “should remember one thing: I am the man who is getting these chickens, and the main thing in raising chickens is to start right. I do not want to go into this thing hastily and then regret it all my life. If you do not like my way, all you have to do is to build coops yourselves and buy chickens and raise them yourselves. Be patient. Every day I am learning more about chickens from your conversations on the train, and when I do get my chickens you will find I have profited by your suggestions.”

Millington and Rolfs had to be satisfied with that, so far as I was concerned, for although I spoke to Isobel frequently on the subject of chickens she had not changed. I silenced Millington by telling him I would have chickens long before he ever succeeded in taking Isobel and me to Port Lafayette in his automobile.

“If that is all you are waiting for,” he said, “we will start to-morrow,” and so we did; but that was all.

Millington and Rolfs, during the winter, worked off some of their surplus chicken energy writing letters to the poultry periodicals. My friends in town began asking me why I did not keep chickens when I lived near to such chicken experts as Rolfs and Millington, by whose experience I could profit; but the worst came one day on the train when Rolfs actually had the assurance to offer me a setting of his White Wyandotte eggs. I blame Rolfs and Millington for acting in this way. No man should brag about chickens he has not; I only bragged about those I meant to get.

By the time spring put forth her tender leaves, Rolfs and Millington were so deep in their imaginary chicken business that they talked nothing else, and all their spare time was spent in my yard, urging me to hurry a little and get the chickens.

“I wish you would hurry a bit in getting those chickens of mine,” Millington would say; “I ought to have at least ten hens sitting by this time.” And then Rolfs would say: “He is right about that. Unless you get my White Wyandottes soon, the chicks will not be hatched out before cold weather. I ought to have the hens on the eggs now.” Occasionally I mentioned chickens in an off-hand way to Isobel, but she had not changed her views.