Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3818/The Counting of Chickens
For business reasons I had to take my holiday alone this year, after my wife and children had come back from Cornwall.
While I was away Peggy wrote to me and said that Evangeline, her favourite Minorca, had laid eleven eggs. Whereupon she, Evangeline, had become broody and refused to be comforted; so Peggy said she had added two eggs that Clara, one of the Cochins, had laid and was saving up, and put them under Evangeline, who had sat on the lot for the regulation period, the result being ten of the dearest little fluffy chickens you ever saw. My first reflection was that there they were, ten of them, eating the bread of idleness, and in war-time, too, with so many other more useful mouths to fill.
But Peggy's last paragraph was consoling. She informed her father that she intended to collar some of the alien trade, and had made a good start with her ten chickens, in addition to the three Minorcas, five Cochins, and two Pedigree-unknowns, which were all laying eggs like anything. Another of the Cochins, Maud Eliza, was beginning to get broody, and was being trained for her sitting Marathon on a box of my best golf-balls, and altogether things looked rosy—from Peggy's point of view.
I replied by return of post that she was really trying to ruin a neutral Denmark, and that to compete with the hated foe she must induce Evangeline, Clara & Co. to turn their attention to laying sausages, the brass collars of electric-light bulbs, toys and small hardware; but, so as not to discourage her, I added that the chickens would make splendid table-decorations later on, and would keep down Williamson's absurd bills for meat.
I came home yesterday; and after tea Peggy presented me with a sheet of paper covered with figures—a set of multiplication sums in fact. There was a column for each of the hens and their possible offsprings, and the grand total, expressed in terms of chickens, was stupendous.
"What," she said, "is a chicken worth when it's ready to cook?"
"It depends," I said, "whether you are buying or selling it."
"Selling," she said.
"Oh; say 2s. 6d."
"Then to be on the safe side," she said, "we'll call it 2s. That makes twice 1,121 shillings. How much is that?"
I found a stump of pencil, and an empty corner of The History of the War, and worked it out. "£112 2s. 0d.," I said at last.
"Not so bad, Daddy, in twelve months."
"Marvellous!" I said; "colossal! But you haven't allowed for the chickens we shall eat."
"No," she said, "but we shall save 2s. on each one we eat, so it's the same thing in the end."
I admitted the plausibility of this calculation.
"But," I said, "you're not allowing for deaths and bad eggs."
"Oh yes, I am," she said; "I've only allowed half the eggs to become chickens."
"You'd never make a company promoter," I said.
"I'm going to be a hospital nurse, thank you, Daddy," she said with her nose in the air. "Do come and see Evargeline's family."
So we strolled into the garden and down to the poultry run, taking the multiplication sums with us.
Evangeline, the optimist, was busy scratching up the more or less kindly fruits of the earth for her family and didn't make the slightest sign of recognition, though I coughed twice.
"She's much too busy," said Peggy, "to notice that you've come home. Aren't they darlings?"
"They're certainly a healthy-looking lot. Two of them I recognise as Clara's contribution. Doesn't she mind?"
"I don't think so," said Peggy; "she's busy too. She's been sitting now for nearly a fortnight, and Maud Eliza's on eggs as well."
"I hope none of my golf balls are addled," I said. "I want to have a round to-morrow afternoon."
"Of course not. I've washed them all and put them back again."
"Good egg! " I said.
Suddenly I had an unhappy thought. "Where," I asked, "are the figures relating to this lot of Evangeline's?"
"Here," she said, "under 'E.' Five chickens. I've allowed five to die, though I'm sure they wouldn't if they knew what they're wanted for."
"I'm afraid you'll have to work it all out again."
"Why?"
"Look here," I said, "five chickens, and each going to lay at least enough eggs to sit on, and half of the sitting to mature, as it were; that sounds fair enough, but not more than three of this lot will lay eggs at all."
"Oh! why ever not?" she said.
"Nature's limitations," I explained. "Seven of them are cockerels."