THE
HISTORY OF
THE HEN FEVER.
CHAPTER I.
PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE.
I was sitting, one afternoon, in the summer of 1849, in my little parlor, at Roxbury, conversing with a friend, leisurely, when he suddenly rose, and passing to the rear window of the room, remarked to me, with considerable enthusiasm,
"What a splendid lot of fowls you have, B——! Upon my word, those are very fine indeed,—do you know it?"
I had then been breeding poultry (for my own amusement) many years; and the specimens I chanced at that time to possess were rather even in color, and of good size; but were only such as any one might have had—bred from the common stock of the country—who had taken the same pains that I did with mine.
There were perhaps a dozen birds, at the time, in the rear yard, and my friend (then, but who subsequently passed to a competitor, and eventually turned into a sharp but harmless enemy) was greatly delighted with them, as I saw from his enthusiastic conversation, and his laudation of their merits.
I am not very fast, perhaps, to appreciate the drift of a man's motives in casual conversation,—and then, again, it may be that I am "not so slow" to comprehend certain matters as I might be! At all events, I have sometimes flattered myself that, on occasions like this, I can "see as far into a millstone as can he who picks it;" and so I listened to my friend, heard all he had to say, and made up my mind accordingly, before he left me.