Trap Nests, 1903

Trap Nests, Page 71

Aiken had worn the startched collar of servitude to dress long enough; he wished to get back to loose clothes and the country, and he saw in hens a way.

He remembered the hens at home in his boyhood as more or less of a nuisance. They had roosted on the rolling stock and scratched behind the live stock in the barn, and what eggs they had laid they were careful to conceal where no one could find them until rotten. But from all accounts the had become a different thing. There was easy wealth in them for whoso had the tip....

A Start in the Fancy, 1903

A Start in the Fancy

Summary: A fancy chicken farmer becomes the object of curiosity in his town when he comes home from a show with a hen purchased for ten dollars. His neighbors first tease him about his foolish extravagance, then start to copy him by starting backyard flocks of their own. But the farmer has the last laugh when he turns around and sells his hen for a huge profit.