Our Wyandottes

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 177, 29 July 1909, Page 3

Our Wyandottes

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Wyandottes are cio;i,f-tic fowls, I may mention—a spvcial I rani of fowl tbat lays eggs when c' - r fowls are on strike—a Hne. big, sur.-jient specimen of fowl that puts on plenty of flesh. This explanation may he deemed superfluous, hut there was a time—and not so long ago. either—when I didn't know the difference between a Wyandotte and an Andalusian. Sometimes I'm almost sorry that I ever did discover the difference., Miranda says I was crazy for poultry, but that's a woman's way—potting the blame on a fellow. And she says as i wanted poultry, and as I eat most of the dead bodies, I should take a share in the work. But a fellow has only the Sundays and holtdays, and she has the whole week. Imagine wanting me to clean out the fowlhoose- ugh! The other Sunday she had the outrageous cheek to suggest it; I wouldn't have minded so much but we had just come home from church, and I had my new suit on. and it isn't nice to go down on your hands and knees and get your trousers all baggy. • Change them," said Miranda. Just i ike a woman—no sense or logic. The id»>a of changing a whole suit for five minutes wo*-k, and we going to spend thp afternoon at Aunt Jenkins*. We keep two brands of Wyandottes pure white and silver-laceJ. The white rooster has only two wives, whiU- the other has many ladies in his harrm: so he crows triumphantly over him. and troubles eventuate. They perk at each other through the wire netting till Miranda goes with a broom and separates them, leaving the ground covered with feathers and gore. Then Miranda has to Condy's fluid the injured combs. People down our way have been writing to the papers about the noise of crowing cocks, and Miranda decla-es tbey mean ours. The impudence of them, as if cocks haven't crowed since Peter's day and before. I should like to wring next door's rooster's neck, all the same; he makes such an infernal row. Miranda says it's our own roosters, but she's a marvel for contradicting- as if I can't tell one voice from another. Miranda finds family re-fcmblancea, and when I remonstrate with her that it is scarcely respectable to compare one's relations with backyard bens she only laughs. "Isn't that one like Cousin Jane?" she says, "and isn't she like Aunt Jenkin* when she feels cold an peeky. An-I the old girl is a real Cynthia Brooks and has the same colouring." This is playing it rather low down. The "old girl" is the mother of the first original chick, purchased as a broody hen, and she is of a ginger colour. Before I fell in love with Miranda I had a penchant for Cynthia, and if the girl is er- a little bit sandyshe can't help it, can she? In the big rooster Miranda sees a resemblance to my brother Loftushes the same strut, she declares, and she had the infernal impudence to consider one of the chicks like me! When my namesake developed sore eyes and had spindley legs, and no eyebrows, ( objected strenuously. We live near the beach, and sometimes go down in the evenings, if the weather is fine. Atone time, I used to take Miranda's hand in mine, and quote poetry to her, and feel quite romantic, as we gazed at the stars up above, and the wide sweep of waters before us. Then we came home arm in arm. Since those wretched Wyandottes took charge of us all is changed. Miranda insists that shell grit is necessary for their digestions, so I always have to carry a gunny-bag with me and hump home a supply. Our fowls lay well, I will say that for them, probably because they are fed up like aldermen. I ate eggs in every shape and form, till Miranda was frightened I would get yellow jaundice or something. But since the price has got stiff she sells them to the butter-man, declaring it is rankest extravagance to eat eggs at 2s per dozen. So I have to put up with the smallest pullets, while the big ones go to market. And goodness knows what she isn't going to do with the egg money.

Miranda likes hatching chickens, and so do I; but she likes pullets, and I prefer roosters. A little while ago two hens were hatching together in adjoining boxes, and used to sit looking out, solemn as owls and immovable as sphinxes. While Miranda stroked their heads and backs, as if they were tame cats, those ridiculous things would not move an eyelash. One day one of the hens took her daily airing, and when she went back not a solitary egg of hers was visible. But the neighbouring hen had a triumphant gleam in her beady eye tbat seemed to tell a story, and under her were the two sittings of eggs. During her rival's absence she had clawed the eggs out of the nest, and bowled them around to her own little lot. Chickens are nice, interesting creatures, especially when they are getting big and leggy Miranda says I'm a cannibal, and tbat I go round watching the poor things putting on flesh and picking out which shall be fit for toe oven soonest, and I must saythat 1 am partial to roast chicken. She never tastes any; she is so silly and sentimental. At first she used to bowl when her pets went to execution; but she is gradually becoming reconciled to the fact, which I am continually pointing out to her, tbat a young and toothsome rooster's natural destiny is the pot. Chickens cause a most serious domestic upheaval. Like babies, they have a knack of arriving at unseasonable hours. At bedtime this particular batrb were begnining to jump out of their shells—lively as crickets, but, as Wyandottes have thick-shelled eggs, the cbicks have to be helped sometimes. About eleven I took a final look. Miranda with a lamp, was superintending operations. "Don't be an idiot," I asid crossly. "Let them come out or not. Get to bed!" But Miranda is an obstinate creature. "Why the Muggingses stay up all night sometimes," sne declared, "when a clutch is coming out, and help the batching with spirit lamps." I left her, and went off to bed in a buff. At midnight six chickens were out, and Miranda took the seventh oat of the shell, and found it too weak

to ik i:.l'j th<- ha.-"k<-t with the o'.i er.-". .Sh'- c;it!".(- into the- room, and woke ni'.out of my first sleep, and, putting the , basket of chicks on the floor took the ; last out of her bosom. "It's warmer in here," s'e said, coolly, "as the fire has gone out. I'll let the hen manage the other eggs till morning. This chick has only one chance. If I take it into bed with me it may live." "Miranda!" I expostulated in horror. | "The poor little brute will die before morning, otherwise. Where's the harm?" she urged in that silly cajoling way of hers. "It's perfectly clean, and it's wrapped up in flannel.". When I saw that she really intended bringing tbat wretched chicken to bed with her I sat up and asserted myself. "Miranda," I saii sternly. "If you bring that miserable chicken into this bed I shall leave the room!" Then Miranda laughed—laughed as |if she would never stop. She has an irritating habit of laughing at nothing sometimes. She says she has a sense |of humour and that I haven't but I i ask anyone with a grain of common sense if there is any humour in sharj ing your bed with a barely hatched chick, while five or six of its brothers and sisters are tweet-tweeting in another part of the room. "Its only warmth it wants." pleaded Miranda, when *he could speak. "The poor, wee, helpless little thing!" "Either that chicken and the others leave the room," I declared firmly, "or I do!" Miranda knows when I am not to be : moved-—tbat when I put my foot down decidedly it is best to respect the patch it covers. She carried out the basket of cbicks with a parting shot. "Well, let them all die before morning—l don't care. After all, they are yours, not mine." I could not sleep, and tossed about, and Miranda inquired what ailed me now. Trust a woman for worrying you. She had put the chickens in the drawing room, which is just opposite and every hour or so she would sneak out, and I could sec the gleam of light across the passage. At dawn she crept out again, and returned with her face aglow—as if she had won Tattersail's, at the very least —carrying a ball of fluffy down. "It's alive Theophilus!" she exclaimed in delight. "Surely you won't mind if I tak- it in now and give it a good warm?" And that silly idiot of a girl did actually put that ridiculous Wyandotte : chick in between the blankets. f It did live, too, and to my joy turned | out a rooster. Now it's getting nice I and tall and leggy, and putting on flesh [ rapidly. Miranda says I'm a brute. f Perhaps so. But I must say there is | something tempting in a well nour- | ished home grown rooster.