Mates at Billabong Part 19

In the other yard a number of older chickens grew and prospered; these also were all white, of the Leghorn breed, and Norah was immensely proud of them. She sat down on the end of a box and pointed out their varied beauties.

"I should have more--lots more," she said, dolefully. "But I've had horrible trouble with pigs. Why anybody keeps pigs at all I can't imagine!"

"They're handy when preserved," Wally remarked. "But what did they do to you?"

"I had a lot of hens sitting this year," said the owner of the yard--"sitting on lovely eggs, too, Wally! Some I got from Cunjee, and some from Westwood, and two special sittings from Melbourne. I was going to be awfully rich! You couldn't imagine all I'd planned with the immense sums I was going to make."

"There's a proverb," said Wally, sententiously, "about counting your chickens."

"You're quite the twelfth person who's mentioned that," Norah said, with some asperity. "Anyhow, I never counted them; I only became rich in a vague way, and it was very comforting. I'm glad I had that comfort, for it was all I had."

"Norah, you thrill my very soul with awful fears," Wally gasped. "Tell me the worst!"

"Donkey!" said Norah, unsympathetically. "Well, they were set. I fixed up the boxes myself, and lined them so beautifully that when they were ready, and the eggs in, it was all I could do to prevent myself sitting on them!"

"I know," Wally nodded. "And then the hens wouldn't sit, would they?

They never do, when you make the nests especially tempting. I had an old Cochin once who used to sit quite happily for six months at a time on a clod and a bit of stone, expecting to hatch out a half-acre allotment and a town hall; but if you put her on twelve beautiful eggs she simply wouldn't look at them! Makes you vow you'll give up keeping hens at all."

"It would," Norah said. "Only mine didn't do that."

"Oh!" said Wally, a little blankly. "What did they do, then?"

"Sat--"

"And ate the eggs--I know," Wally burst in. "My old brute used to eat one a day if you got her to sit. I remember once it was a race between her and the eggs, and I used to haunt the nest, wondering would she get 'em all eaten before they hatched. They beat her by one--one poor chick came out. The shock was too much for the old hen, and she deserted it, and I poddied it in a box for a week, and called it Moses, and it would eat out of my hand, and then it died!" He gasped for breath, and Norah gazed with undisguised admiration at the orator.

"So I know how you'd feel," Wally finished.

"I might--but my hens weren't cannibals. They didn't eat any."

"You had luck," said the unabashed Wally. "Well, what happened?"

"They sat quite nicely--"

"And the eggs were addled, weren't they? It's always the way with half these swagger sittings you buy from dealers. They--"

"Oh, Wally, I WISH you wouldn't be so intelligent!" said Norah, with not unnatural heat. "How am I ever going to tell you?"

"Why, I thought you were telling me as hard as ever you could!" Wally responded, visibly indignant "Well, fire away; I won't speak another word!"

"I don't think you could help it," Norah laughed. "However, I'd eight hens sitting, and I really do believe that they understood their responsibilities, for they set as if they were glued, except when they came off for necessary exercise and refreshment. Even then, they never gave me any of the usual bother about refusing to go back into the right box, or scratching the eggs out. They behaved like perfect ladies--I might have known it was too bright to last!" She heaved a sigh.

"I know you're working up to some horrible tragedy, and I'm sure I won't be able to bear it!" said her hearer, much agitated. "Tell me the worst!"

"So they sat--"

"You said that before!"

"Well, they sat before--and after," said Norah, unmoved. "Two of them brought their eggs out, beautiful clutches, twelve in one and thirteen in the other. Such luck! I used to be like the old woman who pinched herself and asked, 'Be this I?' They all lived in a fox-proof yard--fence eight feet high with wire-netting on top. I wasn't leaving anything to chance about those chicks."

"Was it cholera? Or pip?"

"Neither," said Norah. "They were the very healthiest, all of them. The chickens grew and flourished, and when they were about a week old, the other six hens were all about to bring out theirs within two days. Oh, Wally, I was so excited! I used to go down to the yard about a dozen times a day, just to gloat!"

"Never gloat too soon," said Wally. "It's a hideous risk!"

"I'm never going to gloat again at all, I think," said Norah, mournfully. The recital of her woes was painful. "So I went down one morning, and found them all happy and peaceful; the six old ladies sitting in their boxes, and the two proud mammas with their chicks, scratching round the yard and chasing gra.s.shoppers. It was," said Norah, in the approved manner of story-tellers, "a fair and joyous scene!"

"'Specially for the gra.s.shoppers!" commented her hearer. "And then--?"

"Then I went out for a ride with Dad, and I didn't get back until late in the afternoon. I let Bobs go, and ran down to the fowl yard without waiting to change my habit." Norah paused. "I really don't know that I can bring myself to tell you any more!"

"If you don't," said Wally, indignantly, "there'll certainly be bloodshed. Go on at once--

"Am I a man on human plan Designed, or am I not, Matilda?"

"H'm," said Norah. "Well, I'm not Matilda, anyway! However, I opened the gate of the yard. And then I stood there and just gaped at what I saw."

"Dogs?"

"Our dogs are decently trained," Norah said, much offended. "No, it wasn't dogs--it was pigs!"

"Whew-w!" whistled Wally.

"Pigs. They had burrowed in right under the fence; there was a great big hole there. And they'd eaten every chicken, and every egg in the yard. My lovely boxes were all knocked over, and the nests torn to bits, and there wasn't so much as an eggsh.e.l.l left. The poor old hens were just demented--they were going round and round the yard, clucking and calling, and altogether like mad things. And in the middle of it all, fat and happy and snoring--three pigs!"

"What did you do?" Wally felt that this case was beyond the reach of ordinary words of sympathy.

"Couldn't do anything. I chased the beasts out of the yard, and threw everything I could find at them--but you can't hurt a pig. And Dad was horrid--advised me to have them killed, so that at least we could have eggs and bacon!" Norah laughed, in spite of her woebegone tone.

"And he calls himself a father!" said Wally, solemnly.

"Oh, he wasn't really horrid," Norah answered. "He wrote off to town and bought me a very swagger pair of Plymouth Rocks--just beauties. They cost three guineas!"

"Three guineas!" said the awestruck youth. "What awful waste! Where are they, Norah? Show me them at once!"

"Can't," Norah responded, sadly.

"You don't mean--?"

"Oh, I've had a terrible year with fowls," said the dejected poultry keeper. "Those Plymouth Rocks came just before the Cunjee show, and Dad entered them for me, 'cause the dealer had told him they would beat anything there. And I think they would have--only just after he sold Dad mine, a Cunjee man bought a pair for five guineas. He showed his, too!"

Norah sighed.

"Oh!" said Wally.

"So I got second. However, they were very lovely, and so tame. I was truly fond of Peter."