e,
we might have watched them on a fine day go and sit on the compost heap
and sun themselves, and then have concluded that if they liked light and
heat outside, they'd like it inside. Poor biddies, they were so cold
that they wouldn't lay us any eggs in winter."

"You take a great interest in your poultry, don't you auntie?" said Miss
Laura.

"Yes, indeed, and well I may. I'll show you my brown Leghorn, Jenny,
that lay eggs enough in a year to pay for the newspapers I take to keep
myself posted in poultry matters. I buy all my own clothes with my hen
money, and lately I've started a bank account, for I want to save up
enough to start a few stands of bees. Even if I didn't want to be kind
to my hens, it would pay me to be so for sake of the profit they yield.
Of course they're quite a lot of trouble. Sometimes they get vermin on
them, and I have to grease them and dust carbolic acid on them, and try
some of my numerous cures. Then I must keep ashes and dust wallows for
them and be very particular about my eggs when hens are sitting, and see
that the hens come off regularly for food and exercise. Oh, there are a
hundred things I have to think of, but I always say to any one that
thinks of raising poultry: 'If you are going into the business for the
purpose of making money, it pays to take care of them.'"

"There's one thing I notice," said Miss Laura, "and that is that your
drinking fountains must be a great deal better than the shallow pans
that I have seen some people give their hens water in."

"Dirty things they are," said Mrs. Wood; "I wouldn't use one of them. I
don't think there is anything worse for hens than drinking dirty water.
My hens must have as clean water as I drink myself, and in winter I heat
it for them. If it's poured boiling into the fountains in the morning,
it keeps warm till night. Speaking of shallow drinking dishes, I
wouldn't use them, even before I ever heard of a drinking fountain. John
made me something that we read about. He used to take a powder keg and
bore a little hole in the side, about an inch from the top, then fill it
with water, and cover with a pan a little larger round than the keg.
Then he turned the keg upside down, without taking away the pan. The
water ran into the pan only as far as the hole in the keg, and it would
have to be used before more would flow in. Now let us go and see my
beautiful, bronze turkeys. They don't need any houses, for they roost in
the trees the ye