decided to give all my ducks away, as they wouldn't, couldn't drown, and
there would be no use in killing them. But no one wanted them! And
everybody smiled quizzically when I proposed the gift.

Just then, as if in direct sarcasm, a friend sent me a paper with an
item marked to the effect that a poor young girl had three ducks' eggs
given her as the basis of a solid fortune, and actually cleared one
hundred and eighteen dollars from those three eggs the first year.

Another woman solemnly asserts in print a profit of $448.69 from one
hundred hens each year.

The census man told me of a woman who had only eighteen hens. They gave
her sixteen hundred and ninety eggs, of which she sold eighteen dollars'
worth, leaving plenty for household use.

And my hens and my ducks! In my despair I drove a long way to consult a
"duck man." He looked like the typical Brother Jonathan, only with a
longer beard, and his face was haggard, unkempt, anxious. He could
scarcely stop to converse, evidently grudged the time, devotes his
entire energies from dawn to twilight to slaving for his eight hundred
ducklings. He also kept an incubator going all the time.

"Do ducks pay you?" I asked.

"Wall, I'm gettin' to be somewhat of a bigotist," he said; "I barely git
a livin'."

"Why Mr. Crankin--" I began.