etallic
mother at least several times an hour, though I knew that twice a day to
regulate the heat and fill the lamp was sufficient.

"I don't believe I'll be able to stand seeing them hop out," I remarked to
Baby Tillett, the lambkins, and the good old red ally, who was patiently
seated on a box over fifteen of the pearls. Adam had kept the poor old
darling covering some white china eggs for nearly two weeks before he gave
her the pearls on the same day we put the forty-five in the interior of her
metal rival. I didn't at first understand his sinister purpose in thus
holding her back until the metal rival could get an even start, but I did
later.

"I hope you have a mighty good hatching, Nancy, but I have no faith in
half-way measures, and a tin box is a half-way measure for a hen, just as
cleaning house without bed-sunning is trifling," said Mrs. Addcock, with a
final prod as she came out to the barn with Mrs. Tillett to reclaim Baby
Tillett.

"You ain't married, Miss Nancy, and you won't understand how babies need
mothers, even the chicken kind," said Mrs. Tillett, as she cuddled Baby
Tillett gurglingly against her shoulder and followed in the wake of Mrs.
Addcock with the mops and buckets down the walk and around the house.

I stood beside the tin triumph of science, with my baby lambs licking at my
hands, while Mrs. Ewe nuzzled for corn in one of my huge pockets, and a
baby collie, which Pan had brought the week before, when her eyes were
scarcely open, tumbled about my feet, and looked after the retreating
women--and I did understand.

"Still, I'll do the best I can by your--your progeny, Mr. G. Bird," I said
as the great big, white old fellow came and pecked in my pocket for corn in
perfect friendliness with Mrs. Ewe.

I was called upon to keep my promise in less than a week. It might have
been a tragedy if Bess Rutherford's practical sense had not helped save my
affections from a panic. This is how it happened.

"Yes, chicken culture is a germ that spreads by contagion. I'm not at all
surprised at your friends," Adam had answered when I had appealed to him to
know if I could sell Bess Rutherford just six of the baby chicks, when they
came out, for her to begin a brood in a new back-yard system, only Bess is
so progressive that she is having a nice big place in the conservatory that
opens out of her living-room cleared for them to run about out of their tin
mother when they want to. She says she believes e