all threat of life vanished never to return, no matter through what
vicissitudes the Golden Bird family and I were to pass.

"You can eat these, and next week you can begin to save for a setting as
soon as you can get a hen ready. I'll lend you the first one of mine that
broods," said Mrs. Silas as she took both the beautiful treasures into one
of her large hands with what I thought was criminal carelessness, but
didn't like to say so.

"I've ordered a three-hundred-egg incubator for them," I said proudly, as I
gently took the warm treasures back into my hand. "Incubators are so much
more sanitary and intelligent than hens," I added with all the surety of
the advertisement for the mechanical hen which I had answered with
thirty-five dollars obtained from the sale of the last fluffy petticoat I
had hoped to retain, but which I gave up gladly after reading the
advertisement. Two most lovely chemises had gone for the two brooders that
were to accompany the incubator, and it seemed hard to think that I would
have to wait ten days to receive the fruits of my feminine sacrifice from
the slow shipping service of the railroad.

"Don't ever say that again, Nancy! Hens have more genuine wisdom growing
at the roots of their pin feathers than most women display during the span
of their entire lives, and they make very much better mothers," reproved
Aunt Mary, with sweet firmness. "Just you wait and see which brings out
your prize birds, the wooden box or the hen. When men invent something with
a mother's heart, they had better name it angel and admit that the kingdom
has come. Bless my soul; these biscuits I brought over for you-all's
breakfast are stone-cold!"

"I've had my breakfast a half a day ago," I answered. "You go in and start