Each day I laid an egg and ate it, feeling that my life at least could
be saved, though I must be forever without society, yet I thanked heaven
that hens were made with such resources. Alas! I began to notice that
the eggs grew smaller each day and I felt starvation again taking me by
the wattles. To die without friends on a desert island, horrible! Alone!
Why? Can I not hatch these eggs, can I not raise a brood of little
pullets who shall lay eggs for themselves and me? Time passed and I
brought from the shells eight little chicks, but alas they were all
cocks; poor me. What are they good for on a desert island? They cannot
even keep themselves. Perhaps I had thought too much of Billy during the
setting and that influenced the eggs. But my complaint was punished, for
all of the brood were caught one day in the current and carried away.
Poor, little, posthumous chicks, how your father Billy would have loved
you and taught you to crow. Again I tried; this time with more success
and brought from the eggs six little, fluffy pullets. All lived and we
took turns, off and on, supplying the family with eggs, till one day men
passing in a row boat, saw us and took us aboard. We had been on the
island for two months. All my six pullets lived and married, and are now
in the yard over the fence."

All this time I had been so interested in the story, that I had not
noticed the narrator who was in the midst of my lettuce bed busily
pulling up the young plants.

"Shew there! What are you doing?" I cried. Off she flew with a cackle of
derision.

Looking after her in astonishment and at my poor lettuce bed, I caught
the eye of an old turkey, roosting in an apple tree; he was smiling
grimly.