Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 181, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1911 — HE BOUGHT CHICKENS [ARTICLE]

HE BOUGHT CHICKENS

CITY MAN ON RANCH WAS SENT FOR KIND THAT LAYS. | mook oacK Itn nanMom# piyvnouvn Rooks, Only to Find Out That They Were All Rooster*. “Back to the Country!” Is a good war cry and motto, and countless voices have joined in shouting it. It Is nevertheless true that a real city; man is likely to underrate the difficulties of Wresting a living from the soil. He fails from ignorance as often as the countryman who moves to the city. Ernest F. Harte describes his life with another city friend on a South Dakota claim. The chicken episode is memorable. Kibbey concluded that we needed some chickens about this time, our garden having grown beyond the stage when chickens disarrange such things. It being my tarn to make the usual commissary purchases, I took the mules and set off over the’ execrable roads to town. I bore a commission to buy chickens with a portion of our diminishing capital. "Plymouth rocks r* I asked, atfer “Any breed, just so they are plymouth rocks. Eggs are what we want —eggs. They’re the chickens that lay the eggs. I’ll have the henhouse built by the time you get back. Don’t pay over 40 cents apiece for-’em,” was his parting injunction. “And get a dozen or so to start on.” The storekeeper I did my trading with, was a taciturn old fellow whose conversation was limited to monosyllabic answers to direct questions only. When I inquired if he had any chickens for sale, he pointed to a coop. “Plymouth rocks?" advised Kibbey. looking them over. He granted an affirmative. “How much?” “Ten cents.” I made a lightning calculation. Ten oents, instead of 40; four dozen instead of one dozen. It was a bargain, indeed.

“I’U take 40." I said. ...... The third assistant, a boy with a stone-bruised foot, caught tile chickens, tied their legs and weighed them. “Sixteen dollars and 10 cents,” announced the storekeeper. "Guess again,”, I Bald, shrewdly. "Forty times 10 ,is f 4, according to the Arabic system of notation." "Ten cents a pound," said-the storekeeper, briefly. “Four pounds apiece. Sixteen dollars and 10 cents.” , I told the boy to pht 30 back in the coop after I had selected 10 of the prettiest ones. f ' Klbbey had the-'Chicken barracks completed when I hove in sight of the homestead. It was a sod house of smaller dimensions than t]te manor itself, but the architectural scheme was tiie same. I waved a trio of chickens as I came near. Klbbey shouted and tossed his chapeau. When he made an inspection at close range, however, I caught the psychological waves ol something amiss even before he spoke. I thought his voice sounded choked with emotioh. ; : :m ; “Did the man say these were layers?” he asked. “He didn’t say,” I returned. “I didn’t ask him. I picked these chickens myself." ; ; .'"fjjSj Klbbey turned black in the face. “Every last one of them is a rooster!” he yelled, when be had partly recovered. —Outing Magazine.