I won't be
back for quite a spell."

"Now let me see what all these conniptions is about," she said in a
commanding voice, as she walked boldly in through her son's cautiously
widened door gap.

And a scene of confusion that was truly feminine met her capable
glance. Fuss-and-Feathers, a stylish young spangled Wyandotte, was
waltzing up and down the floor and shrieking an appeal in the direction
of a whole row of half-barrel nests that stretched along the dark and
sequestered side of the feed-room floor, upon which was established
what had a few minutes before been a placid row of setting hens. Now
over the rim of each nest was stretched a black, white, yellow or gray
head, pop-eyed with alarm and reproach. They were emitting a chorus of
indignant squawks, all save a large, motherly old dominick in the
middle barrel who was craning her scaly old neck far over toward the
perturbed young sister and giving forth a series of reassuring and
commanding clucks.

"I didn't do a thing in the world to them, Mother," said Doctor Tom in
a deprecatory tone of voice, as if he were in a way to be blamed for
the whole excitement. "I was across the barn at the corn-crib when she
hopped off her nest and went on the rampage. Just a case of the modern
feminine rebellion, I wager."

"No such thing, sir! They ain't nothing in the world the matter with
her 'cept as bad a case of young-mother skeer as I have ever had before
amongst all my hens. Don't you see, Tom, two of her setting have pipped
they shells and the cheepings of the little things have skeered the
poor young thing 'most to death. Old Dominick have took in the case and
is trying her chicken-sister best to comfort her. These here pullet
spasms over the hatching of the first brood ain't in no way unusual.
The way you have forgot chicken habits since you have growed up is most
astonishing to me, after all the helping with them I taught you." As
she spoke, Mother Mayberry had been rearranging the deserted nest with
practised hand and had tenderly lifted two feeble, moist little
new-borns on her broad palm to show to the Doctor.

"What are you going to do with them, Mother?" he asked, for though his
education in chicken lore seemed to have been in vain he was none the
less sympathetically interested in his mothers practice of the
hen-craft.

"I'm just going to give 'em to Old Dominick to dry out and warm up for
her while I persuade her back on the nest. As she gets used to hea