Robbie’s Chickens

By Olive Thorne[1]

Annotations by Kathryn t. burt

Robbie had two chickens. Little round fuzzy balls they were, with bright black eyes and pink toes. They didn’t live out in a cold coop in the yard,—no, indeed! They lived in a cosey box in a warm corner of the kitchen, and slept in a basket filled with cotton. They were not common chickens, scratching around in the dirt, and eating bugs and such things off the ground; on the contrary, they took their food from a dish,—like other people who live in houses, and drank out of one of Robbie’s mugs.

They were odd little fellows, altogether. You see, they had the misfortune to come out of their warm egg shell—houses just at the beginning of cold weather; and Mrs. Morris—who brought milk to Robbie’s mamma—tried to make them and their brothers and sisters comfortable in the barn. But one after another died, till only these two were left, and she brought them over in her pocket, and gave them to Robbie for pets. One was buff[2] and the other black, and they looked very cunning, running around the kitchen, and pecking at the floor as if it was good to eat. Robbie was perfectly delighted ,but mamma did not know what to do with them. “I don’t see where we can have them, Robbie,” she said. “I know someping,” said he, triumphantly. “I can six ’em! put ’em in a box!”

“But, dear me! they’ll be such a bother,” said mamma.

“’T won’t boder,”said Robbie, dancing around so full of happiness that mamma couldn’t say another word. “I can get dinner. I’m a cooker. Corn and oats,—the milk woman—said so. Papa’s got a whole crowd of oats out to the barn. Oh!—and water!” and he fairly jumped up and down with delight.

These two chickens soon got to be part of the family. They ran all over the house as tame as kittens. It would be funny if they were not tame, for one or the other of them was generally in Robbie’s arms. They would come when he called them, and eat out of his hands.

Now, nothing can be more cunning than wee bits of chickens, but they won’t stay chicks, you know; they insist on growing up into hens. Robbie’s chickens did just like their cousins who live in the poultry-yard, and by Christmas day they were almost hens. Droll[3] enough it looked to see two hens walking around the house.

Mamma wanted to put them out in the coop, but Robbie was horrified at the idea. “I couldn’t sink of it,” he said, when mamma proposed it; “they’d be all cold.” So they stayed in, and were dressed up for Christmas with blue ribbons tied around their necks, and had for their Christmas dinner just what Robbie did, for he got papa to fill a plate for them. Though I can’t say they ate much of it.

A few days after, Buffy got sick; she moped[4] around, refused to eat, and a great swelling came on her neck. Robbie was in great distress, and mamma sent to Mrs. Morris and borrowed a book. It was a sort of a doctor book for chickens, and had a great gilt[5] cock and hen on the cover. Mamma studied it, and made up her mind that Buffy was “crop bound[6],” and must have an operation performed, or die.

Now mamma wasn’t fond of surgical operations,—she could hardly bear to dig out a sliver. But there was Robbie full of grief, and the book said it wouldn’t hurt much. So she took Buffy, and went into her room and locked the door. Then with a pair of sharp scissors she just snipped the skin over the swelling on the chicken’s neck, and, sure enough, there was her crop stuffed full of corn and wheat. Buffy didn’t seem to mind it much. She took out a coffee-cup full, and then put a linen rag around the neck, and went out to the sitting room. “There, Robbie, I think she’ll get well now,” she said, putting her into her little basket.

If that chicken didn’t get well, it wasn’t for want of care, for Robbie was as fussy a little nurse as you ever saw. He brought her everything he could think of to eat, from corn and oats to soft bread and mashed potatoes; but not a speck would she touch. She just sat humped up in a corner of her box, and wouldn’t move. At last a cup of fresh water tempted her, and she took a few sips. Robbie was watching her, and in a minute he saw the water run out and wet the bandage on her neck.

“O mamma, mamma!” he cried, rushing into the sitting room—, with tears streaming down his cheeks, “the water all runned out! Buffy’s got a hole in her! put some camphor[7] on.”

“She don’t want camphor on,” said mamma, thinking a moment.

“I’ll fix her all right; bring her here.” Robbie took her up very carefully in his two little hands, and kissed the top of her head as he gave her to mamma.

“Now go to my medicine-box and get my court-plaster[8],” said she.

Robbie went and got the plaster; he knew it well enough, for he always had it on his fingers when he hurt them. Mamma cut a piece of the plaster, put aside the feathers, and stuck it over the little wound.

“Don’t put on that old rag,” said Robbie; “put on a hankerfish.” And he dove deep into his little pocket and brought out a specimen.

“Not that dirty one,” said mamma; “get a clean one.”

So Robbie ran to his drawer and took out a little clean one with a red border. Mamma tied it around Buffy’s neck, and let her go.

“Now, she looks ‘stonishing,” said Robbie. And she did look funny with her white collar.

“Why, what’s the matter?” said papa, when he came in. “Is Buffy getting to be a dandy, with a fancy necktie?”

“No,” said Robbie, earnestly, “Buffy got broke; she got a bounded crop; this is the doctor’s shop, and mamma’s the mother of it, and she must have dirt and gravel.”

“Why, what does mamma want with dirt and gravel?” said papa, soberly. “I didn’t know she liked such things.”

“No,—Buffy,” said Robbie; “she had to be cut with the fivers, and it didn’t hurt,
and the water runned out, and she couldn’t eat wivout we put on coat plaster!”.

“A dreadful state of things!” said papa. “Hadn’t we better send her to the hospital till she grows up?”

“No, this is the grow place,” said Robbie. “She’ll get well in a mitit. “And she did get well in a few days, if not in a minute, as Robbie thought.

Thorne, olive. 1873. “Robbie’s chickens.” in our young folks: an illustrated magazine for boys and girls, edited by J. T. Trowridge and lucy larcom, 9: 356-358. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007601761.