"
Looking over the long list of diseases to which fowls are subject is
dispiriting. I am glad they can't read them, or they would have all at
once, as J.K. Jerome, the witty playwright, decided he had every disease
found in a medical dictionary, except housemaid's knee. Look at this
condensed list:
DISEASES OF NERVOUS SYSTEM.--1. Apoplexy. 2. Paralysis. 3. Vertigo.
4. Neuralgia. 5. Debility.
DISEASES OF DIGESTIVE ORGANS.--99.
DISEASES OF LOCOMOTIVE ORGANS.--1. Rheumatism. 2. Cramp. 3. Gout. 4.
Leg weakness. 5. Paralysis of legs. 6. Elephantiasis.
Next, diseases caused by parasites.
Then, injuries.
Lastly, miscellaneous.
I could add a still longer list of unclassified ills: Homesickness,
fits, melancholia, corns, blindness from fighting too much, etc.
Now that I have learned to raise chickens, it is a hard and slow
struggle to get any killed. I say in an off-hand manner, with assumed
nonchalance: "Ellen, I want Tom to kill a rooster at once for tomorrow's
dinner, and I have an order from a friend for four more, so he must
select five to-night." Then begins the trouble. "Oh," pleads Ellen,
"don't kill dear Dick! poor, dear Dick! That is Tom's pet of all; so big
and handsome and knows so much! He will jump up on Tom's shoulder and
eat out of his hand and come when he calls--and those big Brahmas--don't
you know how they were brought up by hand, as you might say, and they
know me and hang around the door for crumbs, and that beauty of a
Wyandock, you
couldn't eat
him!" When the matter is decided, as the
guillotining is going on, Ellen and I sit listening to the axe thuds and
the death squaks, while she wrings her hands, saying: "O dearie me! What
a world--the dear Lord ha' mercy on us poor creatures! What a thing to
look into, that we must kill the poor innocents to eat them.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51