Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1908 (Heft 22))

RUMPUS IN A HEN-HOUSE.

BIRDS in their little nests agree? Nit. The term is vulgar, but
the fact remains. For, once upon a time, there was a hen-house.
Somebody must have built it; but the memory even of poultry, is
short-lived. The cocks and hens in this sanctuary of fowldom
had lost sight of history, and complacently believed themselves to be the
originators and sole owners of this finest hennery on earth. They sunned
themselves in the warmth of their self-admiration, and led the pleasant
routine of laying eggs and fattening themselves for the ends of commerce.
All might have continued well but for the presumption of one of their
number. He had started his career in the hennery like any other young
rooster, cocky and quick in his desires, a little intolerant in his crowing.
But it had been expected that this would wear off in time. As he advanced
in years, it was taken for granted that he would settle down into a staid
rooster, studiously solicitous about the feelings of the middle-aged hens.
But he didn’t.
If one can conceive of such a thing in a hen-house, he was an idealist.
The very fluffle of feathers, that gave his head the appearance of an agitated
hearth-broom, showed him to be of some vagabond and adventurous breed,
unbecoming the stolid conventions of a hen-house. But not less aggressive
than his top-knot were his habits. Baffling the attempts of outside influences
to clip his wings, and of the hennery to have him behave like a nice fowl,
he was vagarious alike in his habits and his sentiments. He made flights
into far-off potato-patches; roosted in trees, and used the hen-house only
for his conveniences. Moreover, from his wanderings he brought back
strange ideas: notions of his own importance and of possibilities of life
hitherto undreamed of by poultry. ln fact, he made ructions in the
hennery. The roosters he exasperated by his extra-cocky airs; for he
declared that their complacency had made them careless in their personal
habits, so that bare spots in unbecoming places showed through the dowdi-
ness of their feathers. This was bad enough, but his treatment of the hens
was worse. He brought them to a pitch of bewilderment, quite excruci-
ating, by maintaining that they ought to make the laying of eggs an act
of personal expression.
You can see how it would be. He became, what a Brahma-pootra
called, with a poultrified affectation of legal astuteness, a persona ingrata.
“ Cluck ! Cluck !! Cluck !!! ” resounded from all parts of the hennery,
at this voicing of the general indignation. Pressed for a further advice of
counsel, the pootra used words that made some of the hens thrust their
heads into tomato cans to hide their blushes. Still, it was generally agreed
that the situation warranted some strong expression of opinion, and the
pootra was applauded. But what action should be taken ?
It was now that was revealed the amazing profundity of the Brahma-
pootra. He advised the assemblage to empower the cocks and hens, whose
maturity made them the natural governors of the hennery, to appoint an


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