“Walk, of course; what do you mean by talking to me in that way?”
“I don’t mane any thing at all, at all, but I can’t get the eggs unless your honor pulls down the barn. The old spalpeen has settled herself right under the middle of the flure, and meself spied her out through the cracks.”
Sure enough, there she was. Utterly regardless of all the attractive boxes and imitation eggs, she had crawled away where only a rat could follow, and where a rat would, in the end, be sure to follow her, and had made her nest under the centre timber of the barn floor. There were two ways of reaching her—either by digging a tunnel such as our prisoners made at Libby, or by taking up the planks. As both of these modes would have cost somewhat more than the eggs were worth, even supposing she was a Black Spanish and not a Dominick—about which, I confess, I occasionally had some doubts—we never enjoyed more than a dim view through the dirty cracks of our “hidden treasures.”
This, however, was rather encouraging; another hen might conclude to lay, and might select a more eligible situation. It was a difficult matter to get under the barn, and the next one might not be willing to take the trouble, even for the satisfaction of putting her master at defiance. But alas! the very next day Patrick waked me at daylight to announce that the fowls were “all dead entirely.”
After a vain attempt to understand him, I hurried on my clothes, and, rushing to the coop where they were accustomed to roost, found it empty, and their murdered corpses scattered about in every direction. The small wounds, the unruffled feathers, the universal massacre, showed that a mink had done the deed. My chickens, my rare and valuable chickens, that were to have laid so many eggs and raised such countless posterity; the roosters, that were to have been fathers of a long line of famous descendants; the hens, that were to have been models of matronly propriety and parental self-sacrifice; my pets, that I had raised through so many dangers, that I had saved from one neighbor’s flock and another neighbor’s pups; my profits, that were to have put the author of “Ten Acres Enough” to silence, were cut off forever. Golden visions of eggs were destroyed; anticipations of tender spring broilers were disappointed; my quarter of a million of prospective profits—all were annihilated together by a mink.
We killed that mink. Like Oliver Twist, he returned for more, and met his fate. I had him stuffed, for one mink-skin is certainly a curious result from an investment of twenty pairs of chickens.
CHAPTER IX.
FALL WORK.
THE summer was pretty well over, and the various duties which accompany it accomplished after the manner already described; but there remained much to be performed as the cool weather approached. Not only is there the regular planting season in the spring, but Nature and Bridgeman permit some plants to be set out and seeds to be sown in the fall. September is the month for starting a strawberry-bed, and as my firm resolve was to have a grand plot of this best of small fruits, and as my first summer’s success encouraged me to continue a country residence, Patrick was dispatched to the nearest nursery to engage two thousand plants, to be delivered on the breaking out of the first shower.
Here was the chance for me to make my fortune. The author of “Ten Acres Enough” lays it down as a maxim always to buy some new and hitherto unknown variety, that will bear the largest fruit in the greatest profusion, and insure not only a return for the fruit, but a good income by the sale of offshoots. So Patrick was directed to inform the nurseryman that I wanted a new kind, just discovered and superior to all that had preceded it. This request, though natural enough to any man who had studied the work referred to, must have seemed strange to the nurseryman, who was probably not literary, and who came back with Patrick to see about it.