National Agricultural Library

Dalkins' Little Indulgence -- A Christmas Story

This story is about a farmer—Dalkins—who buys a chicken in Peacham, Vermont for $1.50. Later, the seller regrets letting such a special bird go for what he concludes was too low a price. After being victimized by a string of gossip about the deal, Dalkins meets the seller again at a Fancy Chicken exhibition at New York’s Madison Square Garden at Christmastime. He arranges a type of comeuppance that teaches everyone a lesson about the real value of such a chicken and his own reputation.

Farm-Poultry Publishing Company. Boston, Massachusetts.

"It is no matter how much Dalkins paid for the bird; the point is that the man who sold it to him somehow got the impression that he did not pay enough--that he would have paid more. He could not have denied that Dalkins paid him all he asked. So that he had himself to blame if it was not enough. But he got to talking as if he had been cheated--and badly cheated. He enlarged upon the bird until he said he shouldn't wonder if Dalkins would get a cool fifty for it. He groomed it, so to speak, as he thought of it. He made it a little whiter than white, a little more symmetrical than symmetry.

As a matter of fact it was the kind of bird that is worth what one can get for it. It transcended scoring, as it was better than any score reputable judges are willing to sign. It was a bird framed by nature for comparison judging.

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John Henry Robinson, Editor

The Farm-Poultry, Volume 16, Number 24, page 1-2.