further ceremony, and the dissertation on the domestic barn-yard fowl
was ordered to be printed in the annual report of the proceedings of
the society.

One day while I was talking with Mr. Keyser upon the subject of the
cock he pointed to a chicken that was roosting upon an adjoining
fence, and told me a story about the fowl that I must refuse to
believe.

"Perhaps you never noticed that rooster," said Keyser--"very likely
you wouldn't have observed him; but I don't care in what light you
look at him, the more you study him, the more talented he appears.
You talk about your American iggles and birds of freedom, but that
insignificant-looking chicken yonder can give any of them twenty
points and pocket them at the first shot. That rooster has traits of
character that'd adorn almost any walk of life.

[Illustration: THE AFFAIR AT THE POULTRY-SHOW]

"Most chickens are kinder stupid; but what I like about him is that he
is sympathetic, he has feeling. I know last fall that my Shanghai hen
was taken sick while she was trying to hatch out some eggs, and that
rooster was so compassionate that he used to go in and set on that
nest for hours, trying to help her out, so that she could go off
recreating after exercise. And when she died, he turned right in and
took charge of things--seemed to feel that he ought to be a father to
those unborn little orphans; and he straddled around over those eggs
for ever so long. He never got much satisfaction out of it, though.
Most of them were duck eggs, and it seemed to kinder cut him up when
he looked at those birds after they hatched out. He took it to heart,