Читать книгу Clearing in the West. My Own Story - Nellie Letitia McClung - Страница 13

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Our flock of hens, little and big, numbered twenty-six in the fall of 1882, and they were comfortably housed in a tidy little log hen-house with a pitched roof made from wide rough boards. One window let in light and air, and the door, fastened with a wooden button, had to be closed each night to prevent marauding mink or weasels from entering. Living beside a creek has its disadvantages, for these blood-thirsty little animals that lived in the clay banks, menaced the lives of our hens.

One night in December the blow fell! For by some subterranean passage weasels had made an entrance to the hen-house, and in the morning the twenty-six hens lay dead on the floor, each with her throat slit. The weasels had gone the way they came leaving our poultry project in ruins.

It was a severe loss, but we recovered from it, by the kindly help of our neighbors the next spring. I think Mrs. Naismith organized the chicken shower which established once more our feathered industry.

One lovely June day, when the prairie was at its best with buttercups, and wild peas, the neighbors came from the four corners of the compass, our four neighbors, each with a box in the wagon and in each box was a hen and chickens, and strangely enough, each hen bore a resemblance to the kind donor. Mrs. Naismith’s hen was a fine golden yellow one with black markings. Mrs. William Johnston’s sturdily built Plymouth rock, iron gray and placid. Mrs. Ingram’s a graceful little white hen, and Mrs. Burnett’s a coal black with shining eyes. We called them: Nancy, Mary, Georgina and Annie, after their owners, or rather, we tried to apportion to them these names, but mother suppressed the suggestion. She said the names of respectable married women were not to be lightly bandied about a farmyard.

A plank floor was put in the hen-house and other precautions were taken against mink and weasel, so our flocks grew steadily after that. The next year we had a pond made for ducks and they grew and multiplied.

Shutting the hen-house door became one of my chores. At sundown it must be closed for every decent hen goes in as soon as the shades of evening fall. When we later added a few turkeys my cares increased. Turkeys know nothing and care nothing. Death has no terrors for them. Rain kills them when they are young so they walk out in it every chance they get, piping their melancholy little notes; and so far as lies in them, they resist rescue. I always felt it was a low trick to set a hen on turkey eggs.

Of all fowl, hens are easily the most intelligent. There is a core of real good hard sense in every hen, and in addition to this, some of them are distinct personalities.

The yellow hen given us by Mrs. Naismith had the misfortune to freeze her feet one winter. She was a born rover and once had to spend the night out and it was a cold night too. We found her on the sheltered side of the hen-house in the morning, with her feathers fluffed out and her temper equally ruffled. She blamed everyone but herself for what had happened.

We brought her in, applied coal-oiled rags to the frosted toes and gave her a bran mash with pepper in it. She recovered from her hard experience but the ends of her claws were too badly damaged and poor Nancy found she could no longer scratch.

The next spring, she became a problem for she wanted to hatch. She was shut up in a box; she was tethered by a cord, to one of the little maple trees; she had fluffy skirts put on her legs, which take up the attention of some hens and make them forget their maternal urge. But Nancy could not be distracted. She demanded her rightful place in the community. Why should she be deprived of the joys of family life, because she had lost a few toes? She kept up her agitation, until mother gave in and let her have six eggs, and peace reigned for twenty-one days.

Then Nancy stepped off her nest with six chickens and led them straight to the kitchen door and noisily applied for relief.

She couldn’t scratch up any seeds for them, of course, but we had to let her think she was doing it. Many times a day someone had to take bread, soaked in milk, or boiled wheat out to Nancy. If not, Nancy walked in at the kitchen door with her six trailers and raised a disturbance. The only way to keep her out was to supply plenty of provender. All the other hens were afraid of her, and she had full right of way at the water pans. She couldn’t fight with her maimed claws, but I have no doubt she had a retentive memory and a scurrilous tongue.

We all liked her, so no one minded giving her a hand with the chickens. But when they were feathered out, she began to steal chickens from the other hens, just to show the world, that she was as good as the best. No one knew how she did it, or what inducements she offered, but she increased her flock to ten and before the season was over had adopted two lumbering young turkeys whose real mother had tired of them.

It was a sight to see her sitting over her brood at night, with the vacuous faces of the young turkeys sticking out through her feathers.

She couldn’t hold herself on the roost, so we made her a box with a little bar across, just high enough to lift her slightly off the floor. She managed to stay on this by leaning against the back and side of the box, and was comfortable, I think. She was never quite reconciled to the low seat, when all the other hens had gone up to roost and sometimes flew up and tried to balance herself on the roost, but she couldn’t manage it, with her poor little stumps of claws.

The hen-house door was a profound influence in my childhood. Once I forgot it and wakened in the dark middle of the night with a sickening sense of guilt! The weasel might have come! Or a mink! Every last hen became suddenly dear to me, a thousand times more precious then ever before—now that I had betrayed them! And Nancy, poor Nancy, sitting on the floor, she would be the first to feel the weasel’s tooth!

I got out of bed and carrying my boots in my hand crept down the stairs. The slightest sound would waken mother so I went as softly as a weasel too, but the steps in the stairs squeaked and my knees cracked like pistols.

But I got out, closing the door like a thief, and crossed the yard; the night was as dark as the inside of a cow, not a star even, and quiet as a tomb. It was a cold night too in the fall, but I was so frightened I felt nothing. If the hens were all dead, I might as well die too, like the Roman generals who ran on their swords when they lost the battle.

I knew I was near the door and was feeling for it with both hands when suddenly I stumbled over something warm and furry. It was Nap, precious Nap, the dog, who ordinarily slept in the straw stack. He was guarding the door.—Good old Nap!—He was trying to cover up my misdeed. I went in to see if everything was safe and felt on the roosts. Sleeping hens stirred drowsily as I ran my hand over their hard little feet. Evidently all was well. Nap had saved them—and me. I felt for Nancy on the floor, and got a reassuring peck from her, sweet as a hand shake.

I made my way back to the house so relieved I could have danced for joy, but I could feel the cold now, piercing through my factory cotton night dress.

Responsibility is no doubt good for a child, for one has to learn sooner or later to take it. The hen-house door was my first big assignment and certainly left its mark on me. For years after I grew up and was away from the scenes of my childhood, I would waken from sleep in a panic of fright. Had I closed the hen-house door?