IX

July 16th. PHOEBE and I have been to a Hen Con⚫ference at Buffington. It was for the purpose of raising the standard of the British Hen, and our local Countess, who is much interested in poultry, was in the chair.

It was a very learned body, but Phoebe had coached me so well that at the noon recess I could talk confidently with the members, discussing the various advantages of True and Crossed Minorcas, Feverels, Andalusians, Cochin Chinas, Shanghais, and the White Leghorn. (Phoebe, when she pronounces this word, leaves out the "h" and bears down heavily on the last syllable, so that it rhymes with begone!) The afternoon session was most exciting, for we reached the subject of imported eggs, an industry that is assuming terrifying proportions. The London hotel egg comes from Denmark, it seems -I should think by sailing vessel, not * Copyright, 1901, by Kate Dougias Riggs. VOL. XXX.-11

steamer, but I may be wrong. After we had settled that the British Hen should be protected and encouraged, and agreed solemnly to abstain from Danish eggs in any form, and made a resolution stating that our loyalty to the Princess of Wales would remain undiminished, we argued the subject of hen diet. There was a great difference of opinion here and the discussion was heated; the chair standing for pulped mangold and flint grit, the floor insisting on barley meal and randans, while one eloquent young woman declared, to loud cries of "Ear, 'ear!" that rice pudding and bone chips produce more eggs to the square hen than any other sort of food. Phoebe was distinctly nervous when I rose to say a few words on poultry breeding, announcing as my topic "Mothers, Stepmothers, Foster-Mothers, and Incubators." Protected by the consciousness that no one in the assemblage could possibly know me, I made a distinct success in my maiden speech; indeed, I somewhat overshot the

A Hen Conference. - Page 93.

mark, for the Countess in the chair sent me a note asking me to dine with her that evening. I suppressed the note and took Phoebe away before the proceedings were finished, vanishing from the scene of my triumphs like a veiled prophet.

Coming home we alighted from the trap to gather hogweed for the rabbits. I sat by the wayside lazily and let Phoebe gather the appetizing weed, which grows along the thorniest hedges in close proximity to nettles and thistles.

Workmen were trudging home with their luncheon baskets of woven bulrushes slung over their shoulders. Fields of ripening grain lay on either hand, the sun shining on their every shade of green and yellow, bronze and orange, while the breeze stirred the bearded barley into a rippling golden sea

Phoebe asked me if the people I had left behind. at the Hydropathic were my relatives.

"Some of them are of remote consanguinity," I

responded evasively, and the next question was hushed upon her awe-stricken tongue, as I intended.

They are obeying my wish to be let alone, there's no doubt of that," I was thinking. "For my part I like a little more spirit' and a little less letter '!"

As the word "letter " flitted through my thoughts, I pulled one from my pocket and glanced through it carelessly. It arrived, somewhat tardily, only last night, or I should not have had it with me. I wore the same dress to the post-office yesterday as I wore to the Hen Conference to-day, and so it chanced to be still in the pocket. If it had been anything I valued, of course I should have lost it or destroyed it by mistake; it is only silly, worthless little things like this that keep turning up and turning up after one has forgotten their existence.

You are a mystery! (it ran). I can apprehend but not comprehend you. I know you in part. I understand various bits of your nature; but my knowledge is always fragmentary and disconnected, and when I attempt to make a whole of the mosaics I merely get a kaleidoscopic effect. Do you know those geographical dissected puzzles

that they give to children? You remind me of one of them.

I have spent many charming (and dangerous) hours trying to "put you together "; but I find, when I examine my picture closely, that after all I've made a purple mountain grow out of a green tree; that my river is running up a steep hillside; and that the pretty milkmaid, who should be wandering in the forest, is standing on her head with her pail in the air!

Do you understand yourself clearly? Or is it just possible that when you dive to the depths of your own consciousness, you sometimes find the pretty milkmaid standing on her head? I wonder!

Ah, well, it is no wonder that he wonders! So do

I for that matter!

X

July 17th. THORNYCROFT FARM

seems to be the musical centre of the universe.

When I wake very early in the morning I lie in a drowsy sort of dream, trying to disentangle, one from the other, the various bird notes, trills, coos, croons, chirps, chirrups, and warbles. Suddenly there falls on the air a delicious, liquid, finished song; so pure, so mellow, so joyous that I go to the window and look out at the morning world, half awakened like myself.

There is I know not what charm in a window that does not push up, but opens its lattices out into the greenness. And mine is like a little jewelled door, for the sun is shining from behind the chimneys and lighting the tiny diamond panes with amber flashes.

1

A faint delicate haze lies over the meadow, and rising out of it, and soaring toward the blue, is the lark, flinging out that matchless matin song, so rich, so thrilling, so lavish! As the blithe melody fades away, I hear the plaintive ballad fragments of the robin on a curtseying branch near my window; and there is always the liquid pipe of the thrush, who must quaff a fairy goblet of dew between his songs, I should think, so fresh and eternally young is his note.

There is another beautiful song that I follow whenever I hear it, straining my eyes to the tree-tops, yet never finding a bird that I can identify as the singer. Can it be the

Ousel-cock so black of hue,
With yellow tawny bill?

He is called the poet-laureate of the primrose time, but I don't know whether he sings in midsummer and I have not seen him hereabouts. I must write and ask my dear Man of the North. The Man of the North, I sometimes think, had a Fairy Grandmother who was a robin; and perhaps she made a nest of fresh hay and put

of an eye, the tip-up of a tail, or the sheen of a feather, and he will name you the bird. Near-sighted he is, too, the Man of the North, but that is only for people.

The Square Baby and I have a new game.

I bought a doll's table and china tea-set in Buffington. We put it under an appletree in the side garden, where the scarlet lightning grows so tall and the Madonna lilies stand so white against the flaming background. We built a little fence around it, and every afternoon at tea-time we sprinkle seeds and crumbs in the dishes, water in the tiny cups, drop a cherry in each of the fruit-plates, and have a thé-chantant for the birdies. We sometimes invite an "invaleed" duckling, or one of the baby rabbits, or the peacock, in which case the cards read: