And personally, just as a matter of
taste, would she not prefer wee, round, glancing heads, and pointed
beaks, peeping from under her wings, to these teaspoon-shaped things
larger than her own? I wonder!
We are training fourteen large young chickens to sit on the perches in
their new house, instead of huddling together on the floor as has been
their habit, because we discover rat-holes under the wire flooring
occasionally, and fear that toes may be bitten. At nine o'clock Phoebe
and I lift the chickens one by one, and, as it were, glue them to their
perches, squawking. Three nights have we gone patiently through with
this performance, but they have not learned the lesson. The ducks and
geese are, however, greatly improved by the application of advanced
educational methods, and the _regime_ of perfect order and system
instituted by Me begins to show results.
There is no more violent splashing and pebbling, racing, chasing,
separating. The pole, indeed, still has to be produced, but at the first
majestic wave of my hand they scuttle toward the shore. The geese turn
to the right, cross the rickyard, and go to their pen; the May ducks turn
to the left for their coops, the June ducks follow the hens to the top
meadow, and even the idiot gosling has an inspiration now and then and
stumbles on his own habitation.
Mrs. Heaven has no reverence for the principles of Comenius, Pestalozzi,
or Herbert Spencer as applied to poultry, and when the ducks and geese
came out of the pond badly the other night and went waddling and tumbling
and hissing all over creation, did not approve of my sending them back
into the pond to start afresh.
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