ily, it rather seemed to have aggregated into itself the ages, not
only of these living specimens of the breed, but of all its forefathers
and foremothers, whose united excellences and oddities were squeezed
into its little body. Its mother evidently regarded it as the one
chicken of the world, and as necessary, in fact, to the world's
continuance, or, at any rate, to the equilibrium of the present system
of affairs, whether in church or state. No lesser sense of the infant
fowl's importance could have justified, even in a mother's eyes, the
perseverance with which she watched over its safety, ruffling her small
person to twice its proper size, and flying in everybody's face that so
much as looked towards her hopeful progeny. No lower estimate could
have vindicated the indefatigable zeal with which she scratched, and
her unscrupulousness in digging up the choicest flower or vegetable,
for the sake of the fat earthworm at its root. Her nervous cluck, when
the chicken happened to be hidden in the long grass or under the
squash-leaves; her gentle croak of satisfaction, while sure of it
beneath her wing; her note of ill-concealed fear and obstreperous
defiance, when she saw her arch-enemy, a neighbor's cat, on the top of
the high fence,--one or other of these sounds was to be heard at almost
every moment of the day. By degrees, the observer came to feel nearly
as much interest in this chicken of illustrious race as the mother-hen
did.

Phoebe, after getting well acquainted with the old hen, was sometimes
permitted to take the chicken in her hand, which was quite capable of
grasping its cubic inch or two of body. While she curiously examined
its hereditary marks,--the peculiar speckle of its plumage, the funny
tuft on its head, and a knob on each of its legs,--the little biped, as
she insisted, kept giving her a sagacious wink. The daguerreotypist
once whispered her that these marks betokened the oddities of the
Pyncheon family, and that the chicken itself was a symbol of the life
of the old house, embodying its interpretation, likewise, although an
unintelligible one, as such clews generally are. It was a feathered
riddle; a mystery hatched out of an egg, and just as mysterious as if
the egg had been addle!

The second of Chanticleer's two wives, ever since Phoebe's arrival, had
been in a state of heavy despondency, caused, as it afterwards
appeared, by her inability to lay an egg. One day, however, by her
self-i