yellow chicken acquired peculiar values. The
furnace-man said he was a Wyandotte and, as a feminine household, we
invariably put absolute faith in the word of our furnace-man. I do not
know how Wyandottes ought to look, but I know that this was a
daffodil-colored mite, with legs and feet more slender than chicken
wont, and with a hundred diverting, confiding, tyrannical little ways.

I never ceased marveling at the pluck with which this Lilliputian
tackled life in the midst of such Brobdingnagian surroundings. The only
time I ever saw him scared was when a guest, so well acquainted with
chickens as to venture on personal liberties, flourished her glove over
the graveled box that served poor little Mike for his Earthly Paradise.

"Squawk! squawk!" he cried in an agitated pipe I had not heard before,
and scrabbled wildly to the shelter of my hand, nestling out of sight
under the palm in his favorite fashion.

"Did you hear him call hawk, hawk?" asked my erudite visitor. "We have
an old biddy at home who nurses a grudge against me this week because I
will not let her set, and the last time I went out into the henyard, if
she didn't scream hawk, hawk, just like that, and send the chickens
scuttling to cover under the barn! The hateful thing! She knew how
insulted I would feel to be taken for a hawk!"

But apart from that trying occasion, Mike was a scrap of valor. No
member of the family was tall enough to disconcert him. He pecked
whatever he saw, from his own feet to the register, and would pounce
like a baby pirate upon objects many times larger than himself,
cheeping to the world his tidings of magnificent discovery. I am no
pastoral linguist, but I learned the rudiments of chicken language from
Mike, who was such a chatterbox that he twittered in his sleep.

Meal-times, which he liked to have occur every hour from dawn to dark,
brought out his conversational fluency at its best. We tried many
experiments with his diet, in obedience to many counselors. We were
told that his Indian meal should be mixed with scalding water, that he
was too young for this hearty dish and should be fed with dry oatmeal,
that minute crumbs of bread would comfort his crop, that larger bits of
bread, kindly masticated in advance, were better, that sour milk was
essential, mashed potato indispensable, string beans a plausible
substitute for angle-worms, that he must be given a chance to swallow
gravel to assist the grinding in his wee gizz