Letters from an Oregon Ranch/Chapter 13
XIII
About the time our poultry colony was fairly established in the “settin’” business, a smiling little sheep-herder of the hills handed me a note from Mary. It was certainly unique,—a sheet of pale gray note-paper daintily folded, and pinned together by a white feather crossing it diagonally. Fastened near the top of the inside page was a picture of a row of cunning little chickens just emerging from the shell, cut perhaps from some advertisement; and just beneath the following poetic outburst:—
“To the Hermitage hasten to tea,
And delay not to fix;
You’re wanted just for to see
Our brand-new chicks.”
“How humiliating, with ours still in the shell!” said Tom. “We started neck and neck in this race, and they beat us with eggs, and now come under the wire two weeks ahead with young chickens. No wonder they have ‘dropped into poetry,’—though that second line does seem a bit superfluous, don’t you think?”
“Yes; they must have needed a rhyme for ‘chicks,’ as they well know that to ‘fix’ is with us a lost art.” “Thank heaven it is!” fervently responded the gentleman, turning down the hem of his overalls as a slight concession to the usages of polite society. The housekeeper, noting the half-pint of oats which rolled out on the floor, was calmly ignored, as in his best circus tones he announced himself ready “for the great, free, moral, and spectacular exhibition of the recently incubated.” A half-hour later, in comfortable negligée, we were seated at the social board of our successful competitors in the poultry art.
What topics, think you, are discussed “over the teacups” in the hills? Dinner-parties, luncheons, receptions, last night’s drama? Not at all; nothing so giddy as that. Nor do we discourse of art, music, literature, and such hackneyed themes. No; the agricultural mind soars not so far above the soil. The flow of soul usually begins with chickens and eggs; the subject of butter is then tactfully brought forward, which naturally suggests cows; cows suggesting pasture, it is then but a step to crops in general and “vetch” in particular. Lives there a man with soul so dead that he does not expatiate upon the wonderful properties of “vetch?” If such there be, he is not a resident of the hill-country. Until we came here, I had never heard the word spoken; and now these new landed proprietors talk of it from the rising to the setting of the sun.
On the evening of which I write, the talk began, as usual, with fowls, dwelling chiefly upon the idiosyncrasies of the sitting hen. We spoke of her illogical persistence and her general absurdities. Especially did we deplore her combativeness, Bert holding up a pair of battle-scarred hands as proof that his recent triumphs had not been wholly free from sanguinary features. Presently he went out and gathered a hatful of his “brand-new chicks,” fluffy, velvety little balls of yellow and black, soft grays, and creamy browns. The exhibitor remarked boastfully: “This is only a small line of samples. I have in stock twenty-five of these valuable birds.”
“And they are all right for a starter,” said Tom, patronizingly, “but if you will drop in at the Pointed Fir Hatchery in a couple of weeks, we will show you about twenty-five hundred of them.”
I grieve to note the habit of exaggeration growing upon Thomas. Possibly two hundred were hatched, but to raise them after hatching,—ay, there’s the rub. Watchful sparrow-hawks swooped down upon them by day; at night bloodthirsty prowlers of the forest crept stealthily forth to claim their share; of the survivors, many suffered from disease, not only the newly fledged, but quite a number of the older ones, which were what Tom called a lot of “scrubs.” These were bought, during the rainy season, of accessible and accommodating ranchmen, who naturally did not part with their best.
Finding Tom one day gravely stirring some sort of
BULL RUN RIVER
"The blue stream roars in the vale" (page 94)
mixture on the stove, I asked, “What in the world is that?”
“This, madame, is lard and cayenne pepper,—a dose designed for a sick hen.”
“How do you know she is sick?”
“If you saw a hen moping around, humped up like this, and catching her breath so,”—graphically illustrating,—“you would conclude that she wasn’t enjoying the best of health, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d think she had the blues, at least. What does ail her?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
“Who suggested that mixture?”
“This mixture was used with unparalleled success at my uncle Jim’s.”
“Oh! As a remedy for what?”
“Don’t ask so many questions. I don’t know what it was given for, and I don’t care; it’s the only chicken remedy I wot of, and when one of ours seems indisposed she’s going to get a dose of it.”
With this defiant declaration the gentleman went out to visit his patient, while I looked up a bulletin on Poultry from our Agricultural College. I was appalled to learn of the diseases chicken flesh is heir to. It seemed that if we succeeded in saving even one, it would be as a brand snatched from the burning. In my pursuit of information I had just stumbled upon a poser as the doctor returned.
“Tom, has a hen a nose?”
“Heavens, Katharine! how should I know? Not a noticeable one, I guess; at least, not one that she can turn up. Why?”
“Because this book speaks of a hen’s nostrils, which implies a nose, don’t you think? It says sometimes a slight incrustation forms over them, which should be gently removed by their caretaker.”
“Yes,—well, I can tell you right now that it will be an exceedingly frigid day when this caretaker gently removes it.”
Oh, it is so wearing, this trying to instil scientific knowledge into the mind of one who absorbs so little! Sustained, however, by an earnest desire for his enlightenment, I began again timidly,—
“If this patient of yours should happen to be suffering from lung trouble, you should give her a soothing drink.”
“Soothing fiddlesticks!”
“I thought you approved of the teachings of the Agricultural College?”
“Well, isn’t warm melted lard a soothing drink?”
“I have never tried it as a beverage, but with cayenne pepper added, it might, I should think, excoriate even the well-seasoned throat of the terrible Mrs. Quilp. Didn’t it strangle her?”
“It did, Katharine; but it also aroused her from her apathy,—and that is a point gained.”
To my surprise, after taking a few doses that fowl really did regain her health and spirits. During the summer the invigorating cordial was frequently administered, with varying results. Patients with strong constitutions survived it, others died; but the doctor’s faith in the efficacy of the remedy remained unshaken.
He had several baffling cases; for instance, there was a hen that looked perfectly well and ate ravenously. When wheat was thrown out, she would start for it on the run, but would soon begin to wobble like an exhausted top, and would fall over, perhaps several times, before reaching the goal, often landing there on her back, when she would turn on her side and gobble wheat as deftly as the well ones. She was soon placed in a private sanitarium, and her meals were carried to her until death came to her relief. I pronounced this case epilepsy; though Tom said it was a clear case of locomotor ataxia, and that not even the wise ones of the Agricultural College could have saved her.
We had one frightfully small chicken with an abnormally large head; it could walk a very little in a stiff and awful way, but couldn’t stand at all and maintain its equilibrium, except with its feet very wide apart and its bill poked in the ground as an extra brace. In this case the physician’s diagnosis was “dropsy of the brain.” It did look like it. As the bantling couldn’t keep within even hailing distance of its mother, it was brought to the house for the rest-cure. Here it was never at ease unless it could find a crevice of the kitchen floor and insert its bill in it; then with closed eyes it would stand very still for many minutes, a painful and gruesome-looking object. Very often the professional gaze turned thoughtfully toward it, and I well knew the gentleman was wondering whether or not the malady could be reached by lard and pepper. I was glad when kindly death interposed and saved the poor little sufferer from Graham’s Great Elixir.
During the summer Tom, not being quite satisfied with “scrubs,” bought some better chickens. Among them was one which caused him great trouble for a time. It was a fine thoroughbred Plymouth Rock, called by his former owner “Captain Jack.” The Captain, for some reason known only to himself, objected to the early hours kept by our mountain flock, and firmly refused to enter the dormitory with them at sunset. It may have been that he had an affair of honor arranged with some hostile member of an outlying camp; or, being town-bred, he may have been waiting for curfew to ring. Of course we could only guess at the motives which prompted his erratic conduct. But we did know that if he were left at large he would surely fall a victim to some lynx-eyed assassin of the hills; consequently Tom had to stay with him until he voluntarily walked into the chicken-house.
“Let him go in when he gets ready,” I suggested, “and close the door later.”
“He would never get ready, Katharine; he would hide away in some tree, and that would be the end of his earthly career. You must not forget that he cost me three big silver dollars.”
It was a solemn and impressive spectacle as seen in the gloaming,—those two weird shadowy figures moving slowly and silently through the tall weeds and dog’s-fennel; the Captain a few paces in advance, showing no perturbation, though well he knew “a frightful fiend did close behind him tread.” Occasionally he would pause to snatch a belated bug or an unwary grasshopper, or with assumed nonchalance stop before some little bush, scratch about its roots, then stand on tiptoe, and examine each leaf as carefully as if he were engaged in the study of botany. All this time Tom, with the same affected carelessness, would be sauntering near, pausing as the Captain paused, just as if he were taking an evening stroll and had by the merest accident fallen in with the military gentleman, but always keeping on the off-side and unobtrusively guiding the wanderer’s steps bedward. When at last the wayward one entered the building, the door would bang behind him with such force as to shake the whole crazy structure. These evening rambles were continued for a couple of weeks, when suddenly it seemed to dawn upon the Captain that sunset was practically the sounding of “taps” in the hills, whereupon he turned in with the others, and gave his guardian no further trouble.