Читать книгу The Nursery, March 1873, Vol. XIII. - Various - Страница 3

When I was a little girl, I had a nice great Shanghai hen given to me. She soon laid a nest full of eggs; and then I let her sit on them, till, to my great joy, she brought out a beautiful brood of chickens.

They were big fellows even at first, and had longer legs and fewer feathers than the other little yellow roly-poly broods that lived in our barn-yard. But, although I could see that they were not quite so pretty as the others, I made great pets of them.

They were a lively, stirring family, and used to go roving all over the farm; but never was there a better behaved, or more thoroughly trained set of children. If a hawk, or even a big robin, went sailing over head, how quickly they scampered, and hid themselves at their mother's note of warning! and how meekly they all trotted roost-ward at the first sound of her brooding-call! I wish all little folks were as ready to go to bed at the right time.

One day when the chickens were five or six weeks' old, I saw them all following their mother into an old shed near the house. She led them up into one corner, and then, after talking to them for a few minutes in the hen language, went out and left them all huddled together.

She was gone for nearly an hour; and never once did they stir away from the place where she left them. Then she came back, and said just as plain as your mother could say it, only in another way, "Cluck, cluck, cluck! You've all been good chickens while I was away; have you? Well, now, we'll see what a good dinner we can pick up."

Out they rushed, pell-mell, as glad to be let out of their prison, and as pleased to see their mother again, as so many boys and girls would have been.

Well, day after day, this same thing happened. It came to be a regular morning performance; and we hardly knew what to make of it, until one day we followed old Mother Shanghai, and discovered her secret.

She had begun to lay eggs again, and was afraid some harm would come to her young family if she left them out in the field while she was in the barn on her nest. So she took this way of keeping them out of danger.

Of course, what she said to her brood when she left them must have been, "My dears, my duties now call me away from you for a little while; and you must stay right here, where no harm can come to you, till I come back. Good-by!" And then off she would march as dignified and earnest as you please.

She did this for a number of weeks, until she thought her young folks were old and wise enough to be trusted out alone. Then she let them take care of themselves.

This is a true story.

East Dorset, Vt. M. H. F.