when franklin went out into the yard on his birthday morning, he stopped and stared very hard at something that had never been there before.
it was a piano box, with an open space fenced off at one side, and a square hole leading into it, and at the end of the box was a real door, high enough for a boy to use.
“why, where—” franklin began, and then he heard a shout of laughter from eunice and bridget and kenneth, who were watching him from the shed. mrs. wood was there, too, smiling at his astonishment.
“they’re chickens,” she explained. “grandmother thought you didn’t spend enough time out of doors.”
[89]
“when did they come?” franklin asked.
“last night. and the house was built yesterday, while you were over at fred’s. that’s grandma’s present too.”
“well, i’ll be—thunderstruck!” franklin exclaimed. “oh, i say, what a bully padlock! isn’t grandmother a brick? are they in there now?”
“go and see,” said his mother, handing him the key.
franklin unlocked the door, with shining eyes and a new feeling of importance. there was money in chickens, everybody said.
a fine young rooster was standing solemnly in his pan of food, surrounded by five admiring wives, who cocked their heads at franklin as he approached.
“plymouth rocks!” he exclaimed. “oh, mother, these are first-rate chickens!”
“let them out!” mrs. wood called. “the little door lifts up.”
franklin opened the door, and the fowls strutted out in thoughtful procession, winking[90] their lemon-colored eyes at the sun. then the rooster drew a long breath, raised his head to an alarming height, and, after several attempts, indulged in a strange sound which he had evidently planned for a crow. his wives all looked impressed; but franklin laughed, and eunice, who came running out in her coat and red “pussy” hood, asked: “oh, franklin, is that poor hen sick?” mrs. wood and kenneth came out too, and discussed names for the new arrivals.
“they ought to have colonial titles,” mrs. wood said; “but i can’t think of anything but ‛praise god barebones,’ and that wouldn’t be handy to call one by.”
“there was john alden, mother,” franklin suggested.
“why, of course, and priscilla—and rose standish.”
“and columbus!” added kenneth, with pride.
“they don’t all need to be puritans,”[91] franklin said, “i’d rather have some of them more modern. just see that one there with the extra ruffle on her comb! i’m going to call her veatra peck. and the stiff one that does stunts with her toes every time she puts ’em down,—doesn’t she walk like miss hannah wakefield? i’m going to call her hannah.”
“hannah squawk,” eunice said. “that’s a pretty name.”
“uncle edward sent word that he’ll pay five cents apiece for eggs when your hens begin laying,” mrs. wood said. “he always likes a boiled egg for his breakfast, and can never be sure that store eggs are perfectly fresh.”
franklin was delighted, and went up that evening to talk business with mr. bates. his uncle said that he knew of still another gentleman who would pay as much for fresh eggs,—indeed, he and this man had become acquainted through sharing a bad egg at a restaurant. they said that nothing made[92] people such good friends as having a common enemy.
but franklin’s hens did not begin to lay until march, and then they seemed to have no ideas at all about the proper place for eggs. franklin found them on the hen-house floor, and out in the yard, and very often they were broken. one hen persisted in laying what eunice called “soft-boiled eggs,”—those without a shell,—until franklin put crushed oyster-shells in her food; and then she laid ordinary easter eggs like the others.
somebody gave eunice a bantam named flossy, who laid cunning little white eggs like marshmallows, which eunice had for her breakfast.
franklin received enough from the sale of the eggs to buy wheat screenings, and other food for his “birds,” as he called them; but he made nothing more, and soon began to feel the disadvantage of owning such idiotic pets.
“they never reason about anything,” he complained; “and they haven’t any sense of[93] humor. they can’t see a joke even when it’s on them.”
“i don’t like ’em,” kenneth said; “they’re not warm and cuddly like weejums, or funny like cyclone. they’re not much different from what they are fricasseed—’cept for the gravy.”
soon after the hens began to lay, they showed a desire to sit, so franklin bought a dozen grocery-store eggs for veatra peck; but had to move her into the woodshed, because all the other hens tried to sit at the same time in veatra’s box. he felt rather surprised and grieved that veatra should stop laying while she sat, but said, “i suppose she thinks she laid all those grocery-store eggs, and feels that she’s done enough.”
he waited until veatra had sat for a week; then a fit of impatience seized him.
“i don’t believe all those eggs are good,” he announced at breakfast one day.
“it isn’t time for them to be out yet,” his mother said.[94] “yes, i know; but veatra ought not to be wasting her strength hatching bad eggs. i’m just going to investigate a little, and see how they’re coming on.”
“of course you know that if you do that, it will kill the chickens.”
“not the way i’ve thought of.”
and that day after school the way was carried into effect.
franklin chipped a little hole in each shell, and pasted court-plaster over the hole in those eggs that contained chickens. the others he threw away, and was quite triumphant to find that there were only seven good eggs out of the dozen.
“you see,” he told his mother, “it would have been such a pity for veatra to sit another whole week on something that was never meant for anything but an omelette!”
mrs. wood never expected the chickens to hatch; but they did, every one of them,—this is a true story,—and grew up to be exactly[95] the kind of chickens that one would expect from grocery-store eggs. they were none of them brothers and sisters, or even distant cousins, and all seemed like dreadfully ordinary fowls. but franklin enjoyed them all the more, because each one that came out was such a surprise. he rose at five o’clock in the morning when the first was due, and stole downstairs in his nightgown to feel under the hen. she responded with her usual angry squawk, but at the same time he heard a little soft, sweet sound like the note of a bird, and drew forth a mouse-colored ball of down that looked at him confidingly out of round baby eyes.
“say, you’re the fellow i came to meet!” franklin said, setting the thing on its tiny feet. and he mixed some corn-meal mush for it, which veatra ate up immediately. after breakfast there were two more chickens, and before night the whole seven were cuddled under veatra’s wing.
“what’s that on the back of the stove?”[96] asked biddy the next morning, as eunice came into the kitchen.
“oh, that’s my incubator with an egg in it. i’m goin’ to have some chickens, too.”
the incubator was an old candy box, stuffed with cotton and hung on top of the range.
“whin it hatches, you can have my bist bonnet to raise it in,” said biddy, disrespectfully. but she was never called upon to keep her promise, for the egg baked hard on the next washing day, and eunice ate it.
franklin set hannah on some home-made eggs; but she used to leave them to fly at the cats, and none of them hatched but an egg of flossy’s, which was named “fairy lilian.” she afterwards grew up to be an enormous white rooster, with shaggy legs, and a great deal of manner.
when the warm weather came, the cats were fed in the yard, and as the chickens were always escaping from their own quarters, there were many pitched battles over the food. the hens stole things from the kittens, and pecked[97] them cruelly when they tried to interfere. once eunice saw john alden seize a whole mutton-chop bone, and hurry around the house with it, followed by all the cats. it seemed too unfair, and eunice wrote a note to franklin that day about it, in school.
dear franklin:—
i hate your hens.
your loving sister eunice.
but the next day something happened that cured john alden forever of imposing upon those weaker than himself. he noticed a strange cat taking dinner with the others, and thought, “ah, here’s the chance for me! the natural shyness of this visitor will prevent him from resenting any intrusion.” and, with a haughty stride, he landed in their midst.
the strange cat looked up, planted one paw firmly on the piece of fried potato he was eating, and clawed out one of johnny’s eyes.
the assault was so unexpected that johnny could only stagger one-sidedly away, and sit[98] down in the drinking pan to recover his balance. he knew that no hen could ever admire him again, and that the slowest caterpillar would be able to evade his peck. it was terrible.
fortunately biddy had seen the attack from the window, and was able to testify that none of the family cats had done it.
“it was a cat with a nose that dishgraced the hivin he sat under,” she said. “but, oh, the shplendid foight in him! he was loike a definder of innocence.”
eunice was sorry for johnny, but felt that her cats had been avenged, and stole out that evening to make friends with the defender of innocence.
he was skulking under a neighbor’s barn, and peered out at her with unfriendly, suspicious eyes set in scratched lids. eunice had seen “thomas” cats before,—those with broad bland noses who sit out in front of fish-shops and have self-respect,—but she had never met such a cat as this.
“he doesn’t seem to like me,” she thought,[99] feeling rather hurt. “come, poor kitty, kitty, and get some milk!”
but at this point the barn cat screwed up his torn nose with a peculiarly threatening effect, and gave one long slow spit, most terrible to hear and behold. eunice dropped her saucer of milk and fled. she had not supposed that she would ever live to hear a cat speak to her like that.
he did not call on weejums after this, excepting at night, when everybody else was in bed; and eunice wrote a song about him that she and kenneth used to sing as a duet. sometimes one took the alto part, and sometimes the other, but in any case the cat always fled. he told weejums that it was because it made him feel so hollow.
but one night torn-nose relieved his emptiness by eating one of veatra peck’s chickens.
“i’ll shoot that old barn cat, you see if i don’t!” franklin said furiously. but mrs. wood said that it would mean one less chicken for her to chase. to tell the truth, she was getting rather tired of them, for every day, while franklin was at school, they caused misunderstandings with the neighbors.
“if they’d only wait till he gets home,” she said; “but they commit all their worst outrages in the morning.”
no sooner would she sit down to her sewing than there would come a polite ring at the door-bell, and a certain mr. teechout would say, “pardon me, madam, but your fowls are trespassing on my strawberry beds.”
[101]
and mrs. wood would apologize, and hasten forth to drive the fowls from their unlawful picnic grounds. but she would scarcely have returned to the sitting-room before there would be a thundering knock at the back door, and she would hear biddy’s voice raised in irate argument with the woman across the alley. “you just tell your missus, if she don’t keep them chickens out of my cabbages, i’ll wring their necks!”
then the poor “missus” would have to run out in the hot sun again, and jump cabbages until her unruly brood had been persuaded to return.
“i couldn’t take but three cabbages in one leap at first,” she told franklin; “but now,” she added proudly, “i can do five!”
she knew that her son admired an athletic woman, and talked a great deal among the boys about having the only mother who could drive a nail straight. but when franklin spoke of wanting a boat at the lake that summer, she said that he could not[102] possibly afford to have one unless he sold his chickens.
“but, mother, i’m not going to buy the whole boat! our share will only come to about thirteen dollars.”
“i don’t think we ought to afford even half a boat, unless you sell the chickens. nobody loves them anyhow. it isn’t as if they were ‛real folks,’ like the cats.”
franklin thought it over, and decided that, as he made no money from his hens, it might be as well to get rid of them. it was true, also, as his mother said, that nobody had loved them. but then they were not in the least demonstrative themselves, and did not seem to require affection. indeed, their reserve amounted almost to coldness when any advances were made. and in addition to this, they had once caused franklin to appear quite foolish in school.
he had kept a little diary of their doings, labelled “plymouth rock record,” and one day it happened to be on his desk when the[103] principal came by. she picked it up with much pride, thinking that here was a boy who really loved his united states history, and, turning to the first entry, read: “priscilla laid a hard-boiled egg to-day.”
franklin wondered why it was that she left the room so suddenly, but suspected afterwards that she had been laughing at him.
“there’s something silly about hens,” he thought. “no matter what they do, if you own them, you get drawn into it.”
he also told his mother that they were no good to photograph.
“you mean that they won’t pose?” she asked.
“oh, it isn’t that! they’ll pose if you tie their legs. but they haven’t any front view to their faces,—only a right and wrong side.”
a few days later when mrs. wood was coming up the street, she saw people stop in front of her house, look down at their feet, and then go off laughing. she hurried home, and[104] found this sign tacked in the middle of the sidewalk.
搜索
复制
