Part 25 (1/2)

The second morning that Pap Briggs ate this eggless breakfast he suggested that perhaps Sally might buy a few eggs at the grocery.

”Pap Briggs,” she exclaimed reproachfully, ”the idee of you sayin' sich a thin! As if I would cook packed eggs! No; we'll wait, and mebby the hens will begin layin' again in a day or two.”

But they did not, and the days became a week, and two weeks, and still no eggs rewarded her daily search. Pap knew better than to repeat his suggestion of buying eggs, for Sally Briggs said a thing only when she meant it, and to mention it again would only exasperate her.

”Our hens don't lay a blame egg,” Pap told Billings complainingly, ”and Sally won't buy eggs, and I can't eat nothin' but eggs for breakfast, so I reckon I'll jist have to naturally starve to death.”

”Why don't you try some of our hen-food?” asked Billings, taking up a package and reading from the label. ”'Guaranteed to make hens lay in all kinds of weather, the coldest as well as the warmest' That's just what you want, Pap.”

”Well,” said Pap, ”I been keepin' hens off and on for nigh forty year, and I ain't ever seen any o' that stuff that was ary good; but I got to have eggs or bust, so I'll take a can o' that stuff. But I ain't no hopes of it, Billings, I ain't no hopes.”

His pessimism was well founded. The cold spell was too much even for the best hen-food to conquer. No eggs rewarded him.

One evening he was sitting in Billings', smoking his pipe and thinking.

He had been thinking for some time, and at length a sparkle came into his eyes, and he knocked the ashes from his pipe and arose.

”Billings,” he said, ”mix me up about a nickel's wuth o' corn-meal, and a nickel's wuth o' flour, and”--he hesitated a moment and then chuckled--”and a nickel's wuth o' wash-blue.”

”For heaven's sake, Pap,” said Billings, ”have ye gone plumb crazy?”

”No, I ain't,” said Pap. ”I ain't lost all my brains yit, nor I ain't gone plumb crazy yit, neither. That's a hen food I invented.”

”Hen-food!” exclaimed Billings. ”You don't 'low that will make hens lay, do you, Pap?”

”I ain't advisin' no one to use it that don't want to,” said Pap, ”but I bet you I'm a-goin' to feed that to my hens”; and he chuckled again.

”Pap,” said Billings, ”you're up to some be-devilment, sure! What is it?”

”You jist keep your hand on your watch till you find out,” answered Pap, and he took his package and went home.

”Sally,” he said when he entered the house, ”I got some hen-food now that's bound to make them hens lay, sure.”

She took the package and opened it.

”For law's sake, Pap,” she said, ”what kind o' hen-food is that? It's blue!”

”Yes,” said Pap, looking at it closely, ”it IS blue, ain't it? It's a mixture of my own. I ain't been raisin' hens off an' on fer forty year for nothin'. You got to study the hen, Sally, and think about her. Why don't a hen lay in cold weather? 'Cause the weather makes the hen cold.

This will make her warm. You jist try it. Give 'em a spoonful apiece an'

I reckon they'll lay. It don't look like much, but I bet you anything it'll make them hens lay.”

”I don't believe it,” she snapped, ”and I'll hold you to that bet, sure's my names Briggs.” But the next day she gave them the allotted portion.

That evening when Pap Briggs knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose from his seat in Billings' store, he said, ”Billings, have you got some mainly fresh eggs--eggs you kin recommend?”

”Yes, I have,” said Billings, with a grin. ”So your hen-food don't work, Pap?”

Pap chuckled.

”It's a-workin,” he said, ”and you can give me a dozen o' them eggs.

And, say, you need't tell Sally.”