ast fall that my Shanghai hen
was taken sick while she was trying to hatch out some eggs, and that
rooster was so compassionate that he used to go in and set on that
nest for hours, trying to help her out, so that she could go off
recreating after exercise. And when she died, he turned right in and
took charge of things--seemed to feel that he ought to be a father to
those unborn little orphans; and he straddled around over those eggs
for ever so long. He never got much satisfaction out of it, though.
Most of them were duck eggs, and it seemed to kinder cut him up when
he looked at those birds after they hatched out. He took it to heart,
and appeared to feel low-spirited and afflicted. He would go off and
stand by himself--stand on one leg in a corner of the fence and let
his mind brood over his troubles until you'd pity him. It disgusted
him to think how the job turned out.

"Now, you wouldn't think such a chicken as that would have much
courage, but he'd just as leave fight a wagon-load of tigers as not.
He got a notion in his head that that rooster over there on the
Baptist church-steeple was alive, and he couldn't bear to think that
it was up there sailing around and putting on airs over him, and a
good many times I've seen him try to fly up at it, so's to arrange a
fight. When he found he couldn't make it, he'd crow at the Baptist
rooster and dare it to come down, and at last, when all his efforts
were useless, would you believe that rooster one day attacked the
sexton as the weathercock's next friend, and drove his spurs so far
into the sexton's shanks that he walked on crutches for more'n a week?
I never saw a mere chicken have such fine instincts and such pluck.

"He is a splendid fighter, anyway, just as he stands. Why, he had a
little fuss with Murphy's Poland rooster here some time back, and
instead of going at him and taking the chances of getting whipped,
that chicken actually put himself into training, ate nothing but corn,
took regular exercise, went to roost early, took a cold bath every
morning and got a pullet to rub him down with a corn-cob. It was
wonderful; and in a week or so he was all bone and muscle, and he
flickered over the fence after Murphy's rooster and sent him whizzing
into the next world on the fourth round.

"I never knew such a rooster. Now, do you know I believe that chicken
actually takes an interest in politics? Oh, you may laugh, but last
fall during the campaign he was so excit