She insisted. "With eggs at eightpence it's a sin and a shame not to keep hens in war-time."
I urged that the food would cost a good many eightpences—in war-time.
Her reply was "Pshaw!" (She really does say "Pshaw"—and means it.) "Pshaw! they will live on kitchen scraps."
We consulted Nibletts. He has a local reputation as a chicken expert, mainly, I believe, because he's a butcher. He recommended a breed called Wild Oats (by which he meant, I discovered, Wyandottes).
"You take my tip, Sir," he said, "and buy Wild Oats. If you'll excuse the word—" (Nibletts is always apologising for some term he is about to use, which promises to be inexpressibly shocking to polite ears, and never is)—"they're clinkers."
We ordered a round dozen. We also bought a hen-house fitted with all modern conveniences. The total outlay represented a prince's ransom; but, as I pointed out to my aunt, we had a run for our money.
The hens, when they arrived, were not strictly "as per" advertisement. We bought them as laying pullets, and they didn't lay for quite a time—so far as we knew. Nibletts, however, declared that they were "what you might call in the pink," and surmised that the train journey had "put 'em off the lay, as you might say." If eating and fighting were evidences of their being "in the pink," those birds must have enjoyed exceptional health. They also slept well, I believe.
After about a month one enormous egg arrived—an egg that would not have disgraced a young ostrich. Its huge dimensions worried my aunt. She wondered if they were a symptom, and consulted Nibletts.
He put it down to the food. He said that kitchen scraps were "no good for laying pullets." "That egg, lady," he said, "is what us fanciers call—excuse me—" (I saw my aunt shudder in anticipation)—"a bloomer. You must give 'em a lot more meal."
We bought a big sack of meal—through the medium of Nibletts. If I remember rightly it cost rather more than the pullets.