"One undutiful hen—having apparently imbibed advanced notions—absolutely refused to sit at all, and the poor husband, determined not to be disappointed of his little family, did all the work himself, sitting bravely and patiently day and night, though nearly dead with exhaustion, till the chicks were hatched out. The next time this pair of birds had a nest, the cock's mind was firmly made up that he would stand no more nonsense. He fought the hen [kicked her], giving her so severe a thrashing that she was all but killed, and this Petruchio-like treatment had the desired effect, for the wife never again rebelled, but sat submissively."
In the case of another pair of ostriches of which Mrs. Martin tells, the female was accidentally killed, when the male mourned her loss for over two years, and would not look at another female. He wandered up and down, up and down, the length of his camp, utterly disconsolate. At last he mated again with a most magnificent hen, who ruled him tyrannically; he became the most hen-pecked, or rather hen-kicked of husbands.
V
NOTES FROM THE PRAIRIE
The best lesson I have had for a long time in the benefits of contentment, and of the value of one's own nook or corner of the world, however circumscribed it may be, as a point from which to observe nature and life, comes to me from a prairie correspondent, an invalid lady, confined to her room year in and year out, and yet who sees more and appreciates more than many of us who have the freedom of a whole continent. Having her permission, why should I not share these letters with my readers, especially since there are other house-bound or bed-bound invalids whom they may reach, and who may derive some cheer or suggestion from them? Words uttered in a popular magazine like "The Century" are like the vapors that go up from the ground and the streams: they are sure to be carried far and wide, and to fall again as rain or dew, and one little knows what thirsty plant or flower they may reach and nourish. I am thinking of another fine spirit, couch-bound in one of the northern New England States, who lives in a town that bears the same name as that in which my Western correspondent resides, and into whose chamber my slight and
desultory papers have also brought something of the breath of the fields and woods, and who in return has given me many glimpses of nature through eyes purified by suffering.
Women are about the best lovers of nature, after all; at least of nature in her milder and more familiar forms. The feminine character, the feminine perceptions, intuitions, delicacy, sympathy, quickness, etc., are more responsive to natural forms and influences than is the masculine mind.
My Western correspondent sees existence as from an altitude, and sees where the complements and compensations come in. She lives upon the prairie, and she says it is as the ocean to her, upon which she is adrift, and always expects to be, until she reaches the other shore. Her house is the ship which she never leaves. "What is visible from my window is the sea, changing only from winter to summer, as the sea changes from storm to sunshine. But there is one advantage,—messages can come to me continually from all the wide world."
One summer she wrote she had been hoping to be well enough to renew her acquaintance with the birds, the flowers, the woods, but instead was confined to her room more closely than ever.