In Pastures Green

by Peter McArthur

Once more the gobblers in convention assembled gobble furiously.

Here you have all the elements of a neighbourhood row. Each woman is convinced in her own soul that all the really big turkeys belong to her by rights, and that the runts that have pulled through an attack of roup or blackhead belong to some one else.

"When my hens were setting I noticed that all their eggs were sharp-pointed, and I've heard it said that gobblers always hatch out of that kind."

After this remark the gobblers gobble their worst. They seem to have a mania for gobbling after every remark made by people who are viewing them. At the same time the other two women sniffed, for they knew just what the remark about sharp-pointed eggs and gobblers means. It means that the speaker thinks she should come out of the round-up with a flock wholly composed of gobblers. They would like to do the same, but it is manifestly impossible. There are fully fifty hens, and they must belong to somebody.

At last, in desperation, it is suggested that each owner drive out her own marked old hens and turkeys and see if the young ones will follow their parents. Only people who have tried to drive turkeys know what this means. Make a pass at a gobbler with a switch and he sidesteps out of range. Then he stands to await further developments. As no two turkeys by any possibility sidestep in the same direction the progress that can be made in driving them is evident. It is asserted on good authority that the more people know about turkeys the better they like geese.

In order to facilitate the division of the flocks the owners make wild rushes at them, each trying to cut out towards her own nucleus the finest-looking birds. Full of a sense of the wrongs they are enduring, they keep at it until each has the number of birds in her original flock. Then each makes her way home to tell her husband how she was imposed upon and cheated, and each vows she will never speak to either of her greedy and over-reaching neighbours as long as she lives—no, never.

The turkeys are then fed on grain for a few days and rushed to the Christmas market. The only good turkey is a dead one, but it is so very good that much may be forgiven.

Nov. 11.—During the past couple of days I have had a chance to give some close study to the hen. It was decided to shift one of the flocks to another house. This was done at night—the time when so many hens are shifted. They were picked from their roosts, stuffed into canvas bags, and carried squawking to their new home. Chicken-thieves must have a knack that I cannot discover, or they would be caught every time they make a raid. It doesn't matter whether I catch a hen by the legs or by the neck, or by both at once, she is sure to squawk, and after she is put in a bag she keeps right on "searching her soul for sounds to tell how scared she is." Merely as a matter of scientific interest, I should like to know how the chicken-thieves manage their work so quietly. If there happen to be any among the readers of this page, I wish they would write me a line privately, telling how the trick is done. Communications will be treated as strictly confidential, and I promise not to make bad use of the information given. I really want to know, for it is an irritating mystery how a creature so full of assorted noises can be taken away in silence. Those who know will please write, instead of coming and giving a practical demonstration. They need not disclose name and address as a guarantee of good faith. Write soon.

The only thing in the first night of the moving that seems worth recording was the conduct of the sporty Leghorn rooster. He had been plunged head-first into a bag, squawking like the most chicken-hearted pullet, but when he had been dumped on the floor of his new home he began to strut around and talk hen talk just as if everything had turned out as he had expected. He crooned and clucked to his flock, and acted for all the world like the leader of an Opposition that had suffered a humiliating defeat. He seemed to be telling his followers not to be discouraged, for when the right time came he would rip things wide open and crow over the wreck of the Government. On the day after the moving the old chicken-house was taken away, or every hen would have been back in it next night. As the phrenologists used to say, "The hen has a wonderfully developed bump of locality." When she gets settled in one place she becomes very much attached to it. Unless carried beyond her bearings, she will come back as inevitably as a cat. Knowing this, we were not surprised, on going out with the lantern on the second night, to find a lot of the hens huddled where the chicken-house had stood. The snow was pelting down on them, but they seemed to prefer the tender associations of the old place to the warmth and shelter of the new. There was nothing to be done but to grab them by the legs and carry them to their new home again. Wishing to get through with the job as quickly as possible, I put one under each arm, took two in each hand, and carried the lantern with my teeth. I was just about as fully occupied as a man could well be, but it is always at such times that things begin to happen. I hadn't walked two rods before my nose got itchy. Wow! It wasn't a gentle little tickling, but a wild, exasperating, fiery agony that made me wrinkle up my face till my eyes were shut. I couldn't raise my hands without dropping chickens, and I couldn't get comfort from the wire fence because the lantern was in the way. For the next few seconds I was as busy as Rex Beach's "one-armed paper-hanger with the hives." But it was no use. Luckily the hen-house was not far away, and I rushed towards it. As soon as I reached the door I scattered chickens all over the place and clutched my nose. It is all right for you to laugh, but if you were the right kind of person you would rub your nose in sympathy as you read this. I wonder how many of you did.