"Get a divorce," said Gertrude firmly.
"Oh no, no!" exclaimed the hen. "I couldn't live without Clarence. What I want is to have him all to myself."
At this confession of weakness, Gertrude, raising her bill in air in token of supreme disgust, waddled off to the pond, to attend a regatta of water-bugs.
But Eustace, believing that Martha's whole happiness was at stake, faced the matter seriously. He felt that this was a golden opportunity for doing her good. "You must make your husband respect you and feel the need of your companionship," he said. "You must share all his interests. If he has a passion for hunting which leads him to stalk grasshoppers or go coursing after a pack of beetles, then you must take up hunting and join in his sport. If, on the other hand, he has a hobby for collecting, and goes about picking up pieces of old china, then you, also, must become a connoisseur in antiques."
As the hen listened to this advice, she blinked in a befuddled manner. "But what would become of my eggs?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't mean that you are to absent yourself from your home when maternal duties require your presence there. Far from it. You are to reign there as queen of his heart, enthroned on your nest."
Martha sighed wistfully.
"Even at those times when the cares of motherhood keep you within the coop," he went on, carried away with his theme, "you can still make yourself your husband's intellectual companion, by discussing with him such topics as the political betterment of the barnyard, the abolition of capital punishment for obesity, the restriction of overcrowding in bee tenements, and the regulation of food distribution by the Pan-Gastronomic Association. From talking over these things with you, he will learn the value of your opinion, and will come to find continual inspiration in your society."
The hen listened in awed silence. At last, heartened by his eloquence, she said, "I'll try to be that kind of wife. It will be hard at first, but perhaps I'll get used to it."
Accordingly, the next time Clarence came strutting up to her, with swishing feathers and a gurgle of "Hello, wifie dear!" she answered serenely, "How do you do, Clarence? I want to have a talk with you."