very reasonable. Great reduction from original price; shall no doubt be
forced to give them away to banish painful recollections.

I also invested in turkeys, geese, and peacocks, and a pair of guinea
hens to keep hawks away.

For long weary months the geese seemed the only fowls truly at home on
my farm. They did their level best. Satisfied that my hens would neither
lay nor set, I sent to noted poultry fanciers for "settings" of eggs at
three dollars per thirteen, then paid a friendly "hen woman" for
assisting in the mysterious evolution of said eggs into various
interesting little families old enough to be brought to me.

Many and curious were the casualties befalling these young broods.
Chickens are subject to all the infantile diseases of children and many
more of their own, and mine were truly afflicted. Imprimis, most
would not hatch; the finest Brahma eggs contained the commonest
barn-yard fowls. Some stuck to the shell, some were drowned in a saucer
of milk, some perished because no lard had been rubbed on their heads,
others passed away discouraged by too much lard. Several ate rose bugs
with fatal results; others were greedy as to gravel and agonized with
distended crops till released by death. They had more "sand" than was
good for them. They were raised on "Cat Hill," and five were captured by
felines, and when the remnant was brought to me they disappeared day by
day in the most puzzling manner until we caught our mischievous pug,
"Tiny Tim," holding down a beautiful young Leghorn with his cruel paw
and biting a piece out of her neck.

So they left me, one by one, like the illusions of youth, until there
was no "survival of the fittest."