A Neighbouring Farmer's Wife Had Presented Me With
Some Very Pretty Hens, Who Followed To The Call Of Old Betty Fye's
Handsome Game-Cock.
I was always fond of fowls, and the innocent
Katie delighted in her chicks, and would call them round her to the
sill of the door to feed from her hand.
Mrs. O - - had the same
number as I had, and I often admired them when marshalled forth by
her splendid black rooster. One morning I saw her eldest son chop
off the head of the fine bird; and I asked his mother why she had
allowed him to kill the beautiful creature. She laughed, and merely
replied that she wanted it for the pot. The next day my sultan
walked over to the widowed hens, and took all his seraglio with him.
From that hour I never gathered a single egg; the hens deposited all
their eggs in Mrs. O - -'s hen-house. She used to boast of this as an
excellent joke among her neighbours.
On the 9th of June, my dear little Agnes was born. A few days after
this joyful event, I heard a great bustle in the room adjoining to
mine, and old Dolly Rowe, my Cornish nurse, informed me that it was
occasioned by the people who came to attend the funeral of Phoebe
R - -. She only survived the removal of the family a week; and at her
own request had been brought all the way from the - - lake plains to
be interred in the burying ground on the hill which overlooked the
stream.
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