V. THE NEW MR. PRAWLEY

77

We had plenty of time in which to select our horse while our stable was building. My advertisement in the local paper brought a horse to my door the morning after it appeared, and no horse could have suited me quite so well as that one, but I was resolute and firm. I told the man—he was not a dealer nor yet a commuter, and my conversation with him showed me that he knew just enough, and not too much, about horses—that I liked his horse very well indeed, but that I could not purchase it.. At this he seemed downcast, and I did not blame him. He seemed to take my refusal as some sort of personal insult, for the horse was young, large, strong, gentle, and speedy, and the price was right; but every time I began to weaken Isobel said, “John, remember number eleven!” and I refrained from purchasing that horse. I finally sent the man away with warm expressions of my esteem for him as a man, but that did not seem to cheer him much.

An hour later another man brought another horse, and I sent him away also, as was my duty, for he was only number two; but he was hardly gone when horse number one appeared again. I saw at once that I was going to have trouble with that man. He was so sure he had the horse I wanted that he would not go away and stay away. He kept coming back, and each time he went away sadder than before. He was a sad-looking man, anyway, and he would sit in his buggy and talk to me until another horse was driven up, and then he would sigh and drive down to the corner, and sit and look at me reproachfully until the other man drove away again. Then he would drive back and reproach me, with tears in his eyes, for not buying his horse. By lunch time I was almost worn out, and I told Isobel as much when I looked out of the window and saw that handsome horse and his sad driver waiting patiently at my gate. I told her I was tempted to take that horse, Mrs. Rolfs or no Mrs. Rolfs.

“Take that horse?” said Isobel, as if my words surprised her. “Why, of course we are going to take that horse!”

“But, my dear,” I said, “after what you told me about taking the eleventh horse?”

“Certainly,” said Isobel. “What is this but the eleventh horse? It came first, and then another horse came, and then this one came third, and then some other horse came, and then this one came fifth, and so on, and now it is standing there at the gate, the eleventh horse. Certainly we will buy this horse.”

“Isobel,” I said, “we might quite as well have bought it the first time it was driven to our gate as this time.”

“Not at all,” she said; “that would have been an altogether different thing. If we had taken the first horse that was offered we would have regretted it all our lives; but now we can take this horse and feel perfectly safe.”

Bob—that was the name of the horse—fitted into our stable pretty well. He had to bend rather sharply in the middle to get out of his stall, but he was quite limber for a horse of his age and size, so he managed it very well. A stiffer horse might have broken in two or have been permanently bent. The stall was so economically built that a large, long horse like Bob stuck out of it like a long ship in a short dock; he stuck out so far that we had to go around through the carriage room to get on the other side of him. Our new Mr. Prawley did not mind this. He was willing to spend all the time necessary going from one bit of work to another.

There was one advantage in having the stable and everything about it on a small scale—it lessened the depth of the manure pit. The very first night we put Bob in his stall we heard a loud noise in the stable. Isobel suggested that we had overfed Bob, and that he had swelled out and pressed out the sides of the stable, but I thought it more likely that the weather-boarding had slipped loose. I had seen the thoughtful carpenters putting that weather-boarding on the stable. But Isobel and I were both wrong. Bob had merely dropped into the manure pit.

I was glad then that I had chosen a strong horse, for he did not seem to mind the drop in the least. He stood there with his front feet in the basement, as you might say, and with his rear feet upstairs, quite as if that was his usual way of standing. After that he often fell into the manure pit, and he always took it good-naturedly. He got so he expected it, after awhile, and if his stall floor did not drop once a day, he became restless and took no interest in his food. Usually, during the day, Bob and Mr. Prawley dropped into the basement together while Mr. Prawley was currying Bob, but at night, when we heard Bob calling us in the homesick, whinnying tone, and kicking his heels against the side of the stable, we knew what he wanted, and to prevent him kicking the stable to ruins, we—Isobel and I—would go out and drop him into the basement a couple of times. Then he would be satisfied.

There was but one thing we feared: Bob might become so fond of having his forefeet in the basement and his rear feet upstairs, that he would stand no other way, and in course of time his front legs would have to lengthen enough to let his head reach his manger, or his neck would have to stretch. Either would give him the general appearance of a giraffe. While this would be neat for show purposes, it would attract almost too much attention in a family horse. I have no doubt this is the way the giraffe acquired its peculiar construction, but we were able to avoid it, for we awoke one night when Bob made an unaided descent into the manure pit, and when we went to aid him we found he had descended at both ends, on account of the economical hinges used on the drop floor of the stall of our equine palace. Bob showed in every way that he had enjoyed that drop more than any drop he had ever taken, but I drew the line there. I had other things to do more important than conducting a private Coney Island for a horse. If Bob had been a colt I might not have been so stern about it, but I will not pamper a staid old family horse by operating shoot-the-chutes and loop-the-loops for him at two o'clock in the morning.

“Isobel,” I said, “if that horse is to continue in my stable you may tell Mr. Prawley that it is necessary for his health that he sleep in the stable-loft hereafter. It will be good exercise for him to get up at midnight and pull Bob out of the manure pit.”

“This present Mr. Prawley will not do it,” said Isobel. “He has a wife and family at East Westcote, and he—”

“Very well,” I said, “then get another Mr. Prawley!”

Of the new Mr. Prawley it is necessary to speak a few words.

THE new Mr. Prawley (by this time a family, but we still clung to the name Prawley, just as all coloured waiters are called “George”) was a most unusual man.

For a month before we hired him he had been trying to undermine Isobel's faith in the Mr. Prawley from East Westcote. He had called at the house two or three times a week. At first he merely asked for the job of man-of-all-work, as any applicant might have asked for it, but he soon began speaking of our Prawley in the most damaging terms. I believe there was hardly a crime or misdemeanour that he did not lay at the door of our Mr. Prawley, and so insistent was he that Isobel and I had ceased to speak of him as living in our attic.

Isobel decided the two men must be deadly enemies, and that this fellow was set on hounding our Mr. Prawley from pillar to post, like an avenging angel. She concluded that this man must have been frightfully wronged by our Mr. Prawley, and that he had sworn to dog his footsteps to the grave.

But when she let our Mr. Prawley go and hired this new Mr. Prawley, his interest in his predecessor ceased entirely. In place of the eager, longing look his face had worn, he now wore a thin, satisfied look, which I can best describe as that of a hungry jackal licking his chops. Mr. Prawley—his name, he told us, was Duggs, Alonzo Duggs, but we called him Mr. Prawley—was a tall, lean, villanous-looking fellow, with a red, pointed beard, and at times when he leaned on the division fence and looked into Mr. Millington's yard I could see his fingers opening and shutting like the claws of a bird of prey. He seemed to hate Mr. Millington With a deep but hidden hatred, and often, when Mr. Millington was preparing to take Isobel and me to Port Lafayette, Mr. Prawley would stand and grit his teeth in the most unpleasant manner. When I spoke to Mr. Prawley about it he said, “It isn't Mr. Millington. It is the automobile. I hate automobiles!”

For that matter, I was beginning to hate them myself. Many a pleasant ride behind Bob did I have to sacrifice because Millington insisted that we take a little run up to Port Lafayette with him and Mrs. Millington. We would all get into his car, and Millington would pull his cap down tight, and begin to frown and cock his head on one side to hear signs of asthma or heart throbs or whatever the automobile might take a notion to have that day. And off we would go!

I tell you, it was exhilarating. After all there is nothing like motoring. We would roll smoothly down the street, with Millington frowning like a pirate all the way, and then suddenly he would hear the noise he was listening for, and he would stop frowning, and jerk a lever that stopped the car, and hop out with a satisfied expression, and begin to whistle, and open the car in eight places, and take out an assorted hardware store, and adhesive tape, and blankets, and oil cans, and hatchets, and axes, and get to work on the car as happy as a babe; and Mrs. Millington and Isobel and I would walk home.

The sight of an automobile seemed to madden Mr. Prawley, but otherwise he was the meekest of men, and a good example of this was the manner in which he behaved at our Christmas party.

The idea of having a good, old-fashioned Christmas house party for our city friends was Isobel's idea, but the moment she mentioned it I adopted it, and told her we would have Jimmy Dunn out. Jimmy Dunn is one of those rare men that have acquired the suburban-visit habit. Usually when we suburbanites invite a city friend to spend the week-end with us, the city friend balks.

Into his frank eyes comes a furtive, shifty look as he tries to think of an adequate lie to serve as an excuse for not coming, but Jimmy was taken in hand when he was young and flexible, and he has become meek and docile under adversity, as I might say. When any one invites Jimmy to the suburbs he hardly makes a struggle. I suppose it is because of the gradual weakening of his will power.

“Good!” I said. “We will have Jimmy Dunn out over Christmas.”

“Oh! Jimmy Dunn!” scoffed Isobel gently. “Of course we will have Jimmy, but what I mean is to have a lot of people—ten at least—and we must have at least two lovers, because they will look so well in that little alcove room off the parlour, and we can go in and surprise them once in a while. And we will have a Santa Claus, and lots of holly and mistletoe, and a tree with all sorts of foolish presents on it for every one, and—”

“Splendid!” I cried less enthusiastically.

“Now as for the ten—”

“Well,” said Isobel, “we will have Jimmy Dunn—”

“That is what I suggested,” I said meekly. “We will have Jimmy Dunn,” repeated Isobel, “and then we will have—we will have—I wonder who we could get to come out. Mary might come, if she wasn't in Europe.”

“That would make two,” I said cheerfully, “if she wasn't in Europe.” “And we must have a Yule-log!” exclaimed Isobel. “A big, blazing Yule-log, to drink wassail in front of, and to sing carols around.” I told Isobel that, as nearly as I could judge, the fireplaces in our house had not been constructed for big, blazing Yule-logs. I reminded her that when I had spoken to the last owner about having a grate fire he had advised us, with great excitement, not to attempt anything so rash. He had said that if we were careful we might have a gas-log, provided it was a small one and we did not turn on the gas full force, and were sure our insurance was placed in a good, reliable company. He had said that if we were careful about those few things, and kept a pail of water on the roof in case of emergency, we might use a gas-log, provided we extinguished it as soon as we felt any heat coming from it. I had not, at the time, thought of mentioning a Yule-log to him, but I told Isobel now that perhaps we might be able to find a small, gas-burning Yule-log at the gas company's office. Isobel scoffed at the idea. She said we might as well put a hot-water bottle in the grate and try to be merry around that.

“I don't see,” she said, “why people build chimneys in houses if it is going to be dangerous to have a fire in the fireplace.”

“They improve the ventilation, I suppose,” I said, “and then, what would Santa Claus come down if there were no chimneys?”

I frequently drop these half-joking remarks into my conversations with Isobel, and not infrequently she smiles at them in a faraway manner, but this time she jumped at the remark and seized it with both hands.

“John!” she cried, “that is the very, very thing! We will have Santa Claus come down the chimney! And you will be Santa Claus!” I remained calm. Some men would have immediately remembered they had prior engagements for Christmas. Some men would have instantly declared that Santa Claus was an unworthy myth. But not I! I dropped upon my hands and knees and gazed up the chimney. When I withdrew my head, I stood up and grasped Isobel's hand.

“Fine!” I cried with well-simulated enthusiasm. “I'll get an automobile coat from Millington, and sleigh bells and a mask with a long white beard—”

“And a wig with long white hair,” Isobel added joyously.

“And while our guests are all at dinner,” I cried, “I will steal away from the table—”

“John!” exclaimed Isobel. “You can't be Santa Claus! Can't you see that it would never, never do for you to leave the table when your guests were all there? You cannot be Santa Claus, John!”

“Oh, Isobel!”

“No,” she said firmly, “you cannot be Santa Claus. Jimmy Dunn must be Santa Claus!”

We had Jimmy Dunn out the next Sunday and broke it to him as gently as we could, and explained what a lot of fun it would be for him, and how I envied him the chance. For some reason he did not become wildly enthusiastic. Instead he kneeled down, as I had done, and put his head into the fireplace, in his usual slow-going manner, and looked up to where the small oblong of blue sky glowed far, far above him.

When he withdrew his head, he began some maundering talk about, an uncle of his in Baltimore who was far from well, and who was likely to be extremely dead or sick or married about Christmas time, but I had had too much experience with such excuses to pay any attention to him. Isobel and I gathered about him and talked as fast as we could, with merry little laughs, and presently Jimmy seemed more resigned, and said he supposed if he had to be Santa Claus there was no way out of it if he wanted t o keep our friendship. So when he suggested getting an automobile coat to wear, we hailed it as a splendidly original idea, and patted him on the back, and he went away in a rather good humour, particularly when we told him he need not come all the way down from the top of the chimney, but could get into the chimney from the room above the parlour. I told him it would be no trouble at all to take out the iron back of the fireplace, for it was almost falling out, and that we would have a ladder in the chimney for him to come down.

It was Mrs. Rolfs who changed our plans.

As soon as she heard we were going to have a Santa Claus, she brought over a magazine and showed Isobel an article that said Santa Claus was lacking in originality, and that it was much better to have two little girls dressed as snow fairies distribute the presents from the tree, and Mrs. Rolfs said she was willing to lend us her two daughters, if we insisted. So we had to insist.

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By the merest oversight, such as might occur in any family excited over the preparations for a Christmas party, Isobel forgot to tell Jimmy Dunn that the plan was changed. She had enough to think of without thinking of that, for she found, at the last moment, that she could not pick up a regularly constituted pair of lovers for the little alcove room, and she had to patch up a temporary pair of lovers by inviting Miss Seiler, depending on Jimmy Dunn to do the best he could as the other half of the pair. Of course Jimmy Dunn does not talk much, and it was apt to be a surprise to him to learn he was scheduled to make love, but Miss Seiler talks enough for two. When Jimmy arrived, about four o'clock Christmas eve, Isobel let him know he was to be a lover, but he was then in the house, and it was too late for him to get away.

Isobel had done nobly in securing guests. Jimmy and Miss Seiler were the only guests from the city, but she had captured some suburbanites. Ten of us made merry at the table—that is, all ten except Jimmy. I was positively ashamed of Jimmy. There we were at the culminating hours of the merry Yule-tide, gathered at the festive board itself, with a bowl of first-rate home-made wassail with ice in it, and Jimmy was expected to smile lovingly, and blush, and all that sort of thing, and what did he do? He sat as mute as a clam, and started uneasily every time a new course appeared. Before dessert arrived he actually arose and asked to be excused.

Now, ifyouintended making a fool of yourself in a friend's house by impersonating Santa Claus and coming down a chimney in a fur automobile coat, and nonsense like that,youwould have sense enough to remember which room upstairs had the chimney that led down into the parlour fireplace, wouldn't you? So I blame Jimmy entirely, and so does Isobel. Jimmy says—of course he had to have some excuse—that we might have told him we had given up the idea of having Santa Claus come down the chimney, and that if we had wanted him to come down any particular chimney we should have put a label on it. “Santa Claus enter here,” I suppose.

Jimmy said he did the best he could; that he knew he did not have much time between the threatened appearance of the dessert and the time he was supposed to issue from the fireplace—and so on! He was quite excited about it. Quite bitter, I may say.

It seems—or so Jimmy says—that, when he left the table, Jimmy went upstairs and got into his automobile coat of fur, and his felt boots, and his mask, and his fur gloves, and his long white hair, and his stocking hat, and that about the time we were sipping coffee he was ready. He says it was no joke to be done up in all those things in an overheated house, and he thought if he got into the chimney he might be in a cool draught, so he poked about until he found a fireplace and backed carefully into it, and pawed with his left foot for the top rung of the ladder. That was about the time we arose from the table with merry laughs, as nearly as Isobel and I can judge.

No one missed Jimmy, except Miss Seiler, and she was so unused to being made love to as Jimmy made love that she thought nothing of a temporary absence. It was not until I took Jimmy's present from the tree and sent one of the Rolfs fairies to hand it to Jimmy that we realized he was not in the parlour, and then Isobel and I both felt hurt to think that Jimmy had selfishly withdrawn from among us when we had gone to all the trouble of getting the other half of a pair of lovers especially on his account. It was not fair to Miss Seiler, and I told Jimmy so the next time I saw him.

When the Rolfs fairy had looked in all the rooms, upstairs and down, and had not found Jimmy, she came back and told Isobel, and that was when Isobel remembered she had forgotten to tell Jimmy we had given up the idea of having a Santa Claus. Isobel looked up the parlour chimney, but he was not there, and then we all started merrily looking up chimneys. We found Santa Claus up the library chimney almost immediately. He was still kicking, but not with much vim—more like a man that is kicking because he has nothing else to do than like a man that enjoys it.

I think we must have been gathering around the Christmas tree to the cheery music of a carol when Santa Claus put his foot on a loose brick in the fireplace and slipped. I claim that if Santa Claus had instantly thrown his body forward he would have been safe enough, but Santa Claus says he did not have time—that he slid down the chimney immediately, as far as his arms would let him. He says that when he caught the edge of the hearth with his hands he did yell; that he yelled as loud as any man could who was wrapped in a fur coat and had his mouth full of white horse-hair whiskers and his face covered by a mask. I say that proves he yelled just as we were singing the carol. He should have yelled a moment sooner, or should have waited half an hour, until the noise in the parlour abated. Santa Claus says he tried to stay there half an hour, but the two bricks he had grasped did not want to wait. They wanted to hurry down the chimney without further delay, and they had their own way about it. So Santa Claus went on down with them.

I tell Santa Claus that even if we were singing carols we would have heard him if he had fallen to the library floor with a bump, and that it was his fault if he did not fall heavily, but he blames the architect. He says that if the chimney had been built large enough he would have done his part and would have fallen hard, but that when he reached the narrow part of the chimney he wedged there. I said that was the fault of wearing an automobile coat that padded him out so he could not fall through an ordinary chimney, and I asked him if he thought any man who meant to fall down chimneys had ever before put on an automobile coat to fall in.

Certainly I, the host, could not be expected to stop the laughter and merriment when I was taking presents from the tree, and bid every one be silent and listen for the muffled tones of a Santa Claus in the library chimney. I do not say Santa Claus did not yell as loudly as he could. Doubtless he did. And I do not say he did not try to get out of the chimney. He says he did, but that with his arms crowded above his head he could do nothing but reach. He says he also kicked, but there was nothing to kick. He says the most fruitless task in the world is to kick when wedged in a chimney with a whole fur automobile coat crowded up under the arms and nothing below to kick but air.

Luckily I was able to send for Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington, whose advice is always valuable, since when I know what they advise I know what not to do. Mr. Rolfs rushed in and was of the opinion that we must get a chisel and chisel a hole in the library wall as near as possible to where Santa Claus was reposing, but when Mr. Millington arrived, breathless, he said this would be simple murder, for as likely as not the chisel would enter between two bricks and perforate Santa Claus beyond repair. Mr. Millington said the thing to do was to get a clothesline and attach it to Santa Claus's feet and pull him down. He said it was logical to pull him downward, because we would then be aided by the law of gravitation. Mr. Rolfs said this was nonsense, and that it would only wedge Santa Claus in the chimney more tightly, and that we would, in all probability, pull him in two, or at least stretch him out so long that he would never be very useful again.

Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington became quite heated in their argument. Mr. Rolfs said that if a rope was to be used it should be used to pull Santa Claus upward, but they compromised by agreeing to cut the clothesline in two, choose up sides, and let one side pull Santa Claus upward, while the other pulled him downward. Then Santa Claus would move in the direction of least resistance. So they got the clothesline, and Mr. Rolfs was about to cut it, when Miss Seiler screamed.

I was doubly glad she screamed just at that juncture, for we had all become so interested in the Rolfs-Millington controversy that we had forgotten how perishable a human being is, and, with two such stubborn men as Rolfs and Millington urging us on, we might have pulled Santa Claus in two while our sporting instincts were aroused by the tug-of-war. That was one reason I was glad Miss Seiler screamed. The other reason was that it showed she was doing her share of representing one half of a pair of lovers. She had done rather poorly up to that time, but she saw that when her lover was about to be pulled asunder was the time to scream, if she was ever going to scream, so she screamed. So we all went upstairs and let the rope down to Santa Claus, and the entire merry Christmas house party pulled, and after we had jerked a few times up came Santa Claus with a sudden bump.

At that moment Miss Seiler screamed again, and when we turned we saw the reason, for the glass door to the little upper porch had opened and Jimmy Dunn was entering the room.

We laid Santa Claus on the floor and let him kick, for he seemed to have acquired the habit, but after awhile he slowed down and only jerked his legs spasmodically. Mr. Millington explained that it was only the reflex action of the muscles, and that probably Santa Claus would kick like that for several months, whenever he lay down. He said if we had followed his advice and pulled downward we would have yanked all the reflex action out of the legs.

As soon as I pulled the mask from his face I recognized Mr. Prawley. Jimmy slipped out of the room and walked all the way to the station, and Miss Seiler stood around, not knowing whether she was to be half of a pair of lovers with Mr. Prawley as the other half, or stop being a lover, or weep because Jimmy had gone. I felt sorry for her, because Mr. Prawley was not a good specimen of a Christmas lover just then. When we stood him on his feet his trousers were still pushed up around his knees, and his fur coat was around his neck. He was so weak we had to hold him up.

“What I want to know,” said Mr. Millington, “is what you were doing in that chimney in my automobile coat?”

“Doing?” said Mr. Prawley. “Why, I'm jolly old Santa Claus. I come down chimneys.”

“Well, my advice to you, Mr. Prawley,” I said, “is to stop it. You don't do it at all right. Don't try it again. I've had enough of this jolly old Santa Claus business. Who told you to do it?”

“The little gentleman with the scared look,” said Mr. Prawley, looking around for Jimmy Dunn. “He isn't here.”

“And what did he give you for doing it?” I asked.

“Nothing!” said Mr. Prawley. “He just—”

“Just what?” I asked when he hesitated. Mr. Prawley drew me to one side and whispered.

“He said I might wear an automobile coat. And I couldn't resist the temptation,” said Mr. Prawley. “I've been hankering to get inside an automobile coat for weeks and weeks, sir. I couldn't resist.”

Of course, I could make nothing of this at the time, so I merely said a few words of good advice, and ordered Mr. Prawley never to try the Santa Claus impersonation again.

“Of course, I'm only an amateur at it,” said Mr. Prawley apologetically, and then he brightened, “but I made good speed as far as I got. I'll bet I broke the world's speed record for jolly old Santa Clauses!”

IN order to relieve the reader's suspense, I may as well say here that Jimmy Dunn did not marry Miss Seiler. It is too bad to have to sacrifice what promised to be a first-class love interest, but the truth is that there is less chance of Jimmy ever marrying Miss Seiler than there seemed likelihood of Isobel and me reaching Port Lafayette in Mr. Millington's automobile.

Usually when we started for Port Lafayette, my wife and Millington's wife would dress for the matinée or church, or wherever they intended going that day, and when Millington heard the knocking sound in his engine and began to get out his tools, they would excuse themselves politely and go and spend the day in the city. They usually returned in time to get into the car and ride back to the garage. But I stuck to Millington. You never can tell when a car of that kind will be ready to start up, and I was really very anxious to go to Port Lafayette. I spent some very delightful days with Millington that way, for when he was mending his car he was always in a charming humour, and as gay and playful as a kitten.

I began to fear that one, if not the only, reason why Mr. Millington was always in such a good humour when his car was in a bad one, was because I had told him that I had heard of a man in Port Lafayette who had a fine farm of White Wyandotte chickens, and that I thought I might buy some for my place. Millington does not believe in Wyandottes. He is all for Orpingtons.

It is remarkable how many wives object to chickens. I do not blame Isobel for not liking chickens, for she was born in a flat, and I am willing to make allowances for her lack of education; but why Mrs. Rolfs and Mrs. Millington should dislike chickens was beyond my comprehension. Both were born in the suburbs, and grew up in a real chickenish atmosphere, and still they do not keep chickens. I must say, however, that Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington are persons of greater intelligence. Almost the first day I moved into the suburb of Westcote, Mr. Rolfs leaned over the division fence and complimented me on my foresight in purchasing such an admirable place on which to raise chickens. He told me that if I needed any advice about chickens he would be glad to supply me with all I wished, just as a neighbourly matter. He seemed to take it as a matter of course that I would arrange for a lot of chickens as soon as I was fairly settled on the place, and in this he was seconded by Mr. Millington.

When Mr. Millington saw Mr. Rolfs talking to me, he came right over and said that, while he hated to boast, he had studied chickens from A to Gizzard, and that when I was ready to get my chickens he could give me some suggestions that would be simply invaluable. We talked the chicken matter over very thoroughly, and I soon saw that they were men of knowledge and deep experience in chicken matters, and when they had decided that I would keep chickens, and what kind of chickens, and where I should build the coop, and what kind of coop I should build, we all shook hands warmly, and I went around front to tell Isobel. I was very enthusiastic about chickens when I went.

After I had interviewed Isobel for three minutes I learned, definitely, that I was not going to keep chickens. There were a great many things Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington had not said about chickens, and those were the very things Isobel told me, and they were all reasons for not having chickens on the place at all. She also threw in an opinion of Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington. It seemed that they were two villains of the most depraved sort, who did not dare keep chickens themselves because they were afraid of their wives, and who were trying to steal a vicarious joy by bossing my chickens when I got them, but that I was not going to get any. Absolutely!

Of course, I always do what Isobel tells me, and when she told me I was not going to have chickens, I obeyed. But I merely told Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington when they came over the next day, that I had been thinking the matter over and that I was doubtful whether the south corner or the north corner would be the best place for the coop. So we three went and looked over the ground again. Both favoured the north corner, so I hung back and seemed undecided and doubtful, and finally, in a week or two, they agreed with me.

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I never saw two men so anxious to have a neighbour keep chickens. They were willing to let me have almost everything my own way. It was quite a strain on me, for I had to think of a new objection to their plans every day or so, but I could see the suspense was harder on Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington. Every morning they came and hung over my fence wistfully, and every evening they came over and talked chickens, and on the train to town they spoke freely of the chickens they were going to keep. In a month they were talking of the chickens theywerekeeping, and bragging about them; and old-seasoned chicken raisers used to hunt them up and sit with them and ask for information on knotty points.

Toward fall Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington were beginning to talk about the large sums of money they were making out of their chickens, and promising settings of their White Orpington and White Wyandotte eggs to the commuters, and they began to be really annoying. They would stand at the fence, hollow-eyed and hungry-looking, staring into my yard, and when I passed they would make slighting remarks about me and the lack of decision in my character. They said sneeringly that they did not believe I would ever get any chickens.

“You, Millington, and you, Rolfs,” I said firmly, “should remember one thing: I am the man who is getting these chickens, and the main thing in raising chickens is to start right. I do not want to go into this thing hastily and then regret it all my life. If you do not like my way, all you have to do is to build coops yourselves and buy chickens and raise them yourselves. Be patient. Every day I am learning more about chickens from your conversations on the train, and when I do get my chickens you will find I have profited by your suggestions.”

Millington and Rolfs had to be satisfied with that, so far as I was concerned, for although I spoke to Isobel frequently on the subject of chickens she had not changed. I silenced Millington by telling him I would have chickens long before he ever succeeded in taking Isobel and me to Port Lafayette in his automobile.

“If that is all you are waiting for,” he said, “we will start to-morrow,” and so we did; but that was all.

Millington and Rolfs, during the winter, worked off some of their surplus chicken energy writing letters to the poultry periodicals. My friends in town began asking me why I did not keep chickens when I lived near to such chicken experts as Rolfs and Millington, by whose experience I could profit; but the worst came one day on the train when Rolfs actually had the assurance to offer me a setting of his White Wyandotte eggs. I blame Rolfs and Millington for acting in this way. No man should brag about chickens he has not; I only bragged about those I meant to get.

By the time spring put forth her tender leaves, Rolfs and Millington were so deep in their imaginary chicken business that they talked nothing else, and all their spare time was spent in my yard, urging me to hurry a little and get the chickens.

“I wish you would hurry a bit in getting those chickens of mine,” Millington would say; “I ought to have at least ten hens sitting by this time.” And then Rolfs would say: “He is right about that. Unless you get my White Wyandottes soon, the chicks will not be hatched out before cold weather. I ought to have the hens on the eggs now.” Occasionally I mentioned chickens in an off-hand way to Isobel, but she had not changed her views.

“Now, Isobel,” I would say, “about chickens—”

At the word “chickens” Isobel would look at me reproachfully, and I would end meekly: “About chickens, as I was saying. Don't you think we could have a pair of broilers to-morrow?”

As a matter of fact, this happened so often that I began to hate the sight of a broiled chicken, and was forced to mention roast chicken once in a while. It was after one of these times that the event happened that stirred all Westcote.

I had reached a point where I dodged Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington when I saw them, in order to avoid their insistent clamour for chickens, when one evening Isobel met me at the door with a smile.

“John!” she cried. “What do you think! Our chicken laid an egg!”

“Chicken?” I asked anxiously. “Did you say chicken?”

“And I am going to give you the egg for dinner,” cried Isobel joyfully. “Just think, John! Our own egg, laid by our own chicken! Do you want it fried, or boiled, or scrambled?”

“Isobel,” I demanded, “what is the meaning of all this?”

“I just could not kill the hen,” Isobel ran on, “after it had been so—so friendly. Could I? I felt as if I would be killing one of the family.”

“People do get to feeling that way about chickens when they keep them,” I said insinuatingly. “Why, Isobel, I have known wives to love chickens so warmly—wives that had never cared a snap for chickens before—wives that hated chickens—and they grew to love chickens so well that as soon as the coop was made—of course it was a nice, clean, airy coop, Isobel—and the dear little fluffy chicks began to peep about—”

Isobel stiffened.

“John,” she said finally “you are not going to keep chickens!”

“Certainly not!” I agreed hastily.

“But of course we can't kill Spotty,” said Isobel. “I call her Spotty because that seems such a perfect name for her. I telephoned for a roaster this morning, because you suggested having a roaster for dinner, John, and when the roaster came it was alivechicken! Imagine!”

“Horrors!” I exclaimed.

“I should think so!” agreed Isobel. “So there was nothing to do but 'phone the grocer to come and get the live roaster, but when I 'phoned, his grandmother was much worse, and the store was closed until she got better—or worse—and I couldn't bear to see the poor thing in the basket with its legs tied all that time, for there is no telling how long an old person like a grandmother will remain in the same condition, so I loosened the roaster in the cellar, and at a quarter past four I heard it cluck. It had laid an egg. I knew that the moment I heard it cluck.”

“Isobel,” I said, “you were born to be the wife of a chicken fancier! You shall eat that egg!”

“No, John,” she said, “you shall eat it. It is our first real egg, laid by our dear little Spotty, and you shall eat it.”

“No, Isobel,” I began, and then, as I saw how determined she was, I compromised. “Let us have the egg scrambled,” I said, “and each of us eat a part.”

“Very well,” said Isobel, “if you will promise not to kill Spotty. We will keep her forever and forever!”

I agreed. Isobel kissed me for that.

After we had eaten the egg—and both Isobel and I agreed that it was really a superior egg—we went down cellar and looked at Spotty. I should say she was a very intelligent-looking hen, but homely. There was nothing flashy about her. She was the kind of hen a man might enter in the Sweepstakes class, and not get a prize, and then enter in the Consolation class and not get a prize, and then enter for the Booby prize and still be outclassed, and then enter in the Plain Old Barnyard Fowl class and not get within ten miles of a prize, and then be taken to the butcher as a Boarding House Broiler, and be refused on account of age, tough looks, and emaciation.

She was no pampered darling of the hen house, but a plain old Survival-of-the-Fittest Squawker; the kind of hen that along about the first of May begins clucking in a vexed tone of voice, flies over the top of a two-story bam, and wanders off somewhere into the tall grass back of the cow pasture, to appear some weeks later with twelve chicks of twelve assorted patterns, ranging from Shanghai-bantam to plain yellow nondescript. She was a good, durable hen of the old school, with a wary, startled eye, an extra loud squawk, and a brain the size of a grain of salt.

Spotty was the sort of hen that could go right along day after day without steam heat or elevators in her coop and manage to make a living. As soon as I saw her, my heart swelled with pride, for I knew I had secured a very rare variety of hen. Since every man that can tell a chicken from an ostrich—and some that can't—has become a chicken fancier, the aristocratic, raised-by-hand, pedigree fowl has become as common as dirt, and it is indeed difficult to secure a genuine mongrel hen. I was elated. As nearly as I could judge by first appearances, I was the owner of one of the most mongrel hens that ever laid a plain, omelette-quality egg.

When I had made a coop by nailing a few slats across the front of a soap box, and had nailed Spotty in, I took the coop under my arm and went into the back yard. Mr. Millington was there, and Mr. Rolfs was there, and they were arguing angrily about the respective merits of White Wyandottes and White Orpingtons, but when they saw me they uttered two loud cries of joy and ran to meet me. I tried to cling to the coop, but they wrested it from me and together carried it in triumph to the north corner and set it on the grass. Mr. Millington pulled his compass from his pocket and set the coop exactly as advised by “The Complete Poultry Guide,” with the bars facing the morning sun, and Rolfs hurried into the back lot and hunted up a piece of bone, which he crushed with a brick and placed in the coop, as advised by “The Gentleman Poultry Fancier.” He told us that a supply of bone was most necessary if he expected his hen to lay eggs, and that he knew this hen of his was going to be a great layer. He said he had given the egg question years of study, and that he could tell a good egger when he saw one.

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Millington told me his coop was not as he had meant it to be, but said it would do until he could get one built according to scientific poultry principles. He pointed out that the poultry coop should be heated by steam, and showed me that there was no room in the soap box for a steam heating plant. He said he would not trust his flock of chickens through the winter unless there was steam heating installed.

Then Rolfs and Millington said they guessed the first thing to do, as it was so late in the season, was to set their hen immediately, and as it would probably take Spotty thirteen days to lay enough eggs, they told me to run down to the delicatessen store and buy thirteen eggs, while they arranged a scientific nest in the corner of their coop, for sitting purposes. When I suggested that perhaps Spotty was not ready to set, they laughed at me. They said they could see I would never make a prosperous chicken farmer if I put off until to-morrow what the hen ought to do to-day, and that a hen that ought to set, and would not set, must be made to set. Millington said that he did not mind if Spotty wanted to lay. If she felt so, she could go ahead and lay while she was taking her little rests between sets. He said that in that way she would be doubly useful and that, judging by appearances, she was the kind of hen that could do two or three things at the same time.

Mr. Prawley, when he saw we were going to keep our hen, came out and spoke to Mr. Millington, Mr. Rolfs, and me. He said he had an aversion to hens, but that if I insisted he would devote some of his time to the hen, but Mr. Millington, Mr. Rolfs, and I assured him we would not need his help. We felt that the three of us, with occasional aid from Isobel, could manage that hen.

The next day Mr. Millington and Mr. Rolfs were so swelled with pride that they would not speak to me on the train. Millington did not ask me, that entire day, to take a little run up to Port Lafayette in his automobile. I heard him tell one man on the train to town that he had just set his eighteen prize White Orpingtons, and I heard Rolfs tell another man, at the same time, about a coop he had just had made for his White Wyandottes. He drew a sketch of it on the back of an envelope, showing the location of the heating plant, the location of the gasoline brooders, and the battery of eight electric incubators. He said he saw but one mistake he had made, which was that he had had a gravel roof put on. It should have been slate. He was afraid the hens would fly up onto the roof and eat the gravel for digestive purposes, and if a lot of tarry gravel got in their craws and stuck together in a lump, his hens would suffer from indigestion. But he said he meant to have the gravel roof taken off at once, regardless of cost, but he had not quite decided on a slate roof. One of the slates might become loosened and fall and kill one of his prize White Wyandottes, which he held at seventy-five dollars each. If he could avoid the tar trouble, Rolfs said, he ought to have twelve hundred laying hens by the end of the summer, besides the broilers he would sell. He said he was going straight to a distinguished chemist when he reached town to learn if there was any dissolvent that would dissolve tar in a chicken's craw, without harming the craw.

Then Millington drew a sketch of the automatic heat regulator he was having made to attach to his heating apparatus. He said that ever since he had been keeping poultry he had made a study of coop heating, and that the trouble with most coops was that they were either too hot or too cold. He said a cold coop meant that the chickens got chilly and exhausted their vitality growing thick feathers when all their strength should have been used in egg-laying, and that a hot coop meant that the chickens felt lax and indolent. A hot coop enervated a chicken and made it too lazy to lay eggs, Millington said, but this regulator he was having made would keep the heat at an even temperature, summer and winter, and render the hens bright and cheerful and inclined to do their best. Millington explained that this was especially necessary with White Orpingtons, which are great eaters and consequently more inclined toward nervous dyspepsia, which makes a hen moody. He was going on in this way, and every one was hanging on his words, when he happened to say that one thing he always attended to most particularly was the state of his hens' teeth. He said he had, so far, avoided dyspepsia in his hens, by keeping their teeth in good condition. Every one knew poor teeth caused stomach troubles.

That was the end of Millington. Rolfs had been green with jealousy because so many commuters were listening to Millington, and the moment Millington mentioned teeth Rolfs sneered.

“How many teeth do White Orpingtons have, Millington?” he asked.

“I did not know they had any.”

Then Millington saw his mistake, and did his best to explain that as a rule chickens had no teeth, but that he had, by a process of selection, created a strain that had eighteen teeth, nine above and nine below, but no one believed him, and Rolfs was crowing over him when he made his mistake. He was bragging that he never made a mistake of that kind, because he knew hens never got indigestion in any such way. All that was necessary he said, was to let them have plenty of exercise, and to let them out once in a while for a good fly. He said he let his hens out once every three days, so they could fly from tree to tree.

Then Millington asked, sneeringly, how high his hens could fly, and Rolfs said they were in such good condition they thought nothing of flying to the top of a forty-foot elm tree, and Millington sneered and said any one could guess what kind of White Wyandottes Rolfs had, when a common White Wyandotte is so heavy it cannot fly over a rake handle. That was the end of Rolfs, and I was glad of it, for the two of them had been getting enough reputation on the strength of my chickens. They sneaked out of the smoking car, and at last I had a chance to say a few words, modestly of course, about my splendid group of six hundred Buff Leghorns. I did not brag, as Millington and Rolfs had bragged, but stated facts coldly and calmly, and my words met the attention they deserved, for I was not speaking without knowledge, as Millington and Rolfs had spoken, but as a man who owns a hen can speak.

I reached home that evening in a pleasant state of mind, for I knew how kind hearted Isobel is, and I knew she would see, if I placed it before her, that it was extremely cruel to keep a hen in solitary confinement, when the hen had probably been accustomed to a great deal of society. I felt sure that in a few days Isobel would order me to purchase enough more poultry to allow Spotty to lead a pleasant and sociable life. But when Isobel met me at the gate she disheartened me.

She said the grocer's grandmother had not been seriously ill, after all; she had been in a mere comatose condition, and had come to, and the grocer had come back, and he had called and taken Spotty. He offered to kill her—Spotty, not Isobel or his grandmother—but Isobel could not bear to eat Spotty so soon after she had been a member of our family, so the grocer took Spotty away and sent up another roaster. At least he said it was another, but after I had carved it I had my doubts. In general strength and durability the roaster and Spotty were one.

The next morning, when I went out to see if Mr. Prawley had hoed the garden properly, I found Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington leaning over my fence. They were unabashed.

“I have just been looking over your place,” said Rolfs, “and I must say it is a most admirably located place on which to keep a cow. And if you want any suggestions on cow-keeping, you may call on me at any time. I have studied the cow, in all her moods and tenses, for years.”

“Nonsense!” said Millington. “A man is foolish to try to keep live stock. Live stock is subject to all the ills—”

“Such as toothache!” sneered Rolfs.

“All the ills of man and beast,” continued Millington. “What you want is an automobile. Now I will sell mine—”

“No!” I said positively.

“You only say that because you do not know my automobile as I know it,” said Millington. “It is a wonder, that machine is. Now, I propose that to-morrow you and your wife take a little run up to Port Lafayette with me and my wife. After the cares of chicken raising—”

“Very well, Millington,” I said, “we will go to Port Lafayette!”

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