he _cour_, or
dooryard, is the enclosure adjoining the house, and is surrounded on
all sides by buildings or walls. Beyond this the more prosperous have
also a garden or orchard, likewise surrounded by high walls.

In the dooryard are performed many of the duties both of the barn and
the house. Here the cows are milked, the horses groomed, the sheep
sheared, and the poultry fed. Here, too, is the children's playground,
safe from the dangers of the street, and within hearing of the
mother's voice.

It is into such a dooryard that we seem to be looking in this picture
of The Woman Feeding Hens. It is a common enough little house which
we see, built of stone, plastered over, in the fashion of the French
provinces, and very low. In the long wall from the door to the garden
gate is only one small high window. But time and nature have done much
to beautify the spot. In the cracks of the roof, thatched or tiled,
whichever it may be, many a vagrant seed has found lodgment. The weeds
have grown up in profusion to cover the bare little place with
leaf and flower. Indeed, there is here a genuine roof garden of the
prettiest sort, and it extends along the stone wall separating the
dooryard from the garden. Some one who has seen these vine-fringed
walls in Barbizon describes them as gay with "purple orris, stonecrop,
and pellitory."

A young wife presides in the little cottage home and rules her side
of the dooryard with gentle sway. She has a curly-haired baby boy who
creeps after her as she goes about her work. His inquiring mind is at
this age investigating all the corners of the house, and before long
he will be the young master of the dooryard.

The housewife boasts a small brood of hens. Early in the morning the
voice of the chanticleer is heard greeting the dawn. Presently
he leads his family forth to begin their day's scratching in the
dooryard. Here and there they wander with contented clucks, as they
find now and then a worm or grub for a titbit. But it is only a poor
living which is to be earned by scratching. The thrifty housewife sees
to it that her brood are well fed. At regular times she comes out of
the house to feed them with grain, as she is doing now.

[Illustration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clement & Co. John Andrew
& Son, Sc. THE WOMAN FEEDING HENS]

The baby hears the mother's voice saying, in what is the French
equivalent, "Here chick-chick-chick," and creeps swiftly to the door.
He, too, tries to