e chickens for table, each hen
the weight o' a turkey. Third, for speculation. Let the neebors buy, and
she could realize sixty dollar on the brood o' twal' chicks; for they
fetched ten dollar the pair, and could be had for nae less onywheres.
Every hen wad hae twa broods at the smallest."

Kate doubted, but handed over the money. The next day she was awaked
from a nap on the parlor sofa by a most unearthly music. There was one
bar of four notes, first and third accepted; bar second, a _crescendo_
on a long swelled note, then a _decrescendo_ equally long.

"Why," she cried, "is that our little bull-calf practising singing? I
shall let Barnum know about him. He'll make my fortune!"

Ben knocked at the door, presented a radiant grin, and invited
inspection of his Shanghais. Kate went with him to the cellar. There
stood two feathered bipeds on their tip-toes, with their giraffe necks
stretched up to my sister's swinging shelf where the cream and butter
were kept. It spoke well for the size of their craws certainly, that,
during the two minutes Ben was away, they had each devoured a "print" of
butter, about half a pound!

"Saw ye ever the like o' thae birds, Miss Kathleen?" began Ben, proudly.

"My butter, my butter!" cried Kate.

Ben ran to the rescue, and having removed everything to the high shelf,
he came back, saying,--

"It was na their faut. I tak shame for not minding that they are so gay
tall. But did ye ever see the like o' yon rooster?"

Indeed, she never had! The frightful monster, with its bob-tail and
boa-constrictor neck! But she said nothing.

Ben named them the Emperor and Empress. They were not to be allowed to
walk with common fowls, and he soon had a large, airy house made for
them. He watched these creatures with incessant devotion, and one
morning he was beside himself with delight, for, by a most hideous
roaring on the part of the Emperor, and a vigorous cackling, which
Ben, very descriptively, called "scraughing," by the Empress, it was
announced that she had laid an egg!

Etiquette required Kate to call and admire this promise of royal
offspring, and she was surprised into genuine admiration when she saw
the prodigy. Her nose had to lower its scornful turn, her lips to relax
their skeptical twist. It was an egg indeed! Ben was nobly justified in
his purchase. His step was light that day. Kate heard him singing, over
and over again, a verse from an old song which he had brought with him
f