Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1882 — It was a Hen. [ARTICLE]

It was a Hen.

A woman living on the other side of the river was very much annoyed by her neighbor’s hens scratching up the grass in her yard and doing other mischief, and making up her mind to be rid of these hens, she hit upon a happy idea for the immediate extermination of the unsuspecting biddies. She got a lot of corn and soaked it in water, which contained a large quantity of arsenic. Then, placing the corn in a tempting and inviting position in the yard, she retired to the house, and seating herself at the window, anxiously watched the result of her plan from behind the closed blinds. Presently three biddies made her yard a visit, gobbled up all the com and went home with full crops. In a short time all three keeled over. A pleasant feeling crept over the woman that her troubles from hens were at an end. A few hours later she glanced over into the next yard, when, horrorl what did she see! a huge pile of feathers on the ash heap. Mercy! it could not be possible that the owner of the poisoned hens had picked them and intended to eat or sell them, but somehow or other she couldn’t get this impression out of her mind. The more she thought of it the more uncomfortable she felt. Her experiment was not as satisfactory as it was a few hours before. She was not exactly scared, but then a kind of neighborly feeling seemed to steal over her very suddenly. Perhaps, since her neighbor had kept hens she had not been so pleasant to her, or treated her as kindly as she ought to have done. She was not anxious to know what was to be done with the dead hens. Oh, no! But she concluded to just run in and make a friendly call—just to ask after her neighbor’s health. After being pleasantly received, and discussing those choice little bits of news in which women most delight, she happened to notice the hens nicely plucked and lying in a basket. She casually remarked: “Why, Mrs. , what beautiful chickens; so nice and plump; where did you get them? How much a pound were they? But what are you going to do with three of them?” The reply was that she was going to cook one for dinner and sell the other two to the butcher, who had agreed to take them. The other woman said she was just going down town to order some chickens. She was going to have some company and would like the whole three; in fact, she wonld pay considerable more a pound than the butcher, because they were so nice and plump, and she knew where they were raised. The bargain was finally closed, the friendly call ended and the hens carried hoipe by a woman whose mind was very much relieved. It will never be known whether the owner of the hens ever knew the cause of their death; perhaps she did; perhaps she did not; perhaps she purposely put the feathers on the ash heap, knowing that it would scare the other woman. Perhaps so, who knows?