I agreed. Isobel kissed me for that.
After we had eaten the egg—and both Isobel and I agreed that it was really a superior egg—we went down cellar and looked at Spotty. I should say she was a very intelligent-looking hen, but homely. There was nothing flashy about her. She was the kind of hen a man might enter in the Sweepstakes class, and not get a prize, and then enter in the Consolation class and not get a prize, and then enter for the Booby prize and still be outclassed, and then enter in the Plain Old Barnyard Fowl class and not get within ten miles of a prize, and then be taken to the butcher as a Boarding House Broiler, and be refused on account of age, tough looks, and emaciation.
She was no pampered darling of the hen house, but a plain old Survival-of-the-Fittest Squawker; the kind of hen that along about the first of May begins clucking in a vexed tone of voice, flies over the top of a two-story bam, and wanders off somewhere into the tall grass back of the cow pasture, to appear some weeks later with twelve chicks of twelve assorted patterns, ranging from Shanghai-bantam to plain yellow nondescript. She was a good, durable hen of the old school, with a wary, startled eye, an extra loud squawk, and a brain the size of a grain of salt.
Spotty was the sort of hen that could go right along day after day without steam heat or elevators in her coop and manage to make a living. As soon as I saw her, my heart swelled with pride, for I knew I had secured a very rare variety of hen. Since every man that can tell a chicken from an ostrich—and some that can't—has become a chicken fancier, the aristocratic, raised-by-hand, pedigree fowl has become as common as dirt, and it is indeed difficult to secure a genuine mongrel hen. I was elated. As nearly as I could judge by first appearances, I was the owner of one of the most mongrel hens that ever laid a plain, omelette-quality egg.
When I had made a coop by nailing a few slats across the front of a soap box, and had nailed Spotty in, I took the coop under my arm and went into the back yard. Mr. Millington was there, and Mr. Rolfs was there, and they were arguing angrily about the respective merits of White Wyandottes and White Orpingtons, but when they saw me they uttered two loud cries of joy and ran to meet me. I tried to cling to the coop, but they wrested it from me and together carried it in triumph to the north corner and set it on the grass. Mr. Millington pulled his compass from his pocket and set the coop exactly as advised by “The Complete Poultry Guide,” with the bars facing the morning sun, and Rolfs hurried into the back lot and hunted up a piece of bone, which he crushed with a brick and placed in the coop, as advised by “The Gentleman Poultry Fancier.” He told us that a supply of bone was most necessary if he expected his hen to lay eggs, and that he knew this hen of his was going to be a great layer. He said he had given the egg question years of study, and that he could tell a good egger when he saw one.
Millington told me his coop was not as he had meant it to be, but said it would do until he could get one built according to scientific poultry principles. He pointed out that the poultry coop should be heated by steam, and showed me that there was no room in the soap box for a steam heating plant. He said he would not trust his flock of chickens through the winter unless there was steam heating installed.
Then Rolfs and Millington said they guessed the first thing to do, as it was so late in the season, was to set their hen immediately, and as it would probably take Spotty thirteen days to lay enough eggs, they told me to run down to the delicatessen store and buy thirteen eggs, while they arranged a scientific nest in the corner of their coop, for sitting purposes. When I suggested that perhaps Spotty was not ready to set, they laughed at me. They said they could see I would never make a prosperous chicken farmer if I put off until to-morrow what the hen ought to do to-day, and that a hen that ought to set, and would not set, must be made to set. Millington said that he did not mind if Spotty wanted to lay. If she felt so, she could go ahead and lay while she was taking her little rests between sets. He said that in that way she would be doubly useful and that, judging by appearances, she was the kind of hen that could do two or three things at the same time.