Show Chicken Jimmy Day after day I used to see him as I passed that little cottage down on Poplar street Why anybody had taken the trouble to name streets in such a poor shabby village as ours I never could fathom There were only six of them at best — sleepy untidy purposeless old things without pride or adornment and the sleepiest of them all bore the name Poplar The cottage stood well back from a fence of ragged hedge and was so overgrown with ivy and so throttled with bushes and grape-vine- s that it needed a long second look to discover it at aH In the morning and evening at everything enjoyed a period of bustle and activity The process of awakening — which I often watched — was of this sort First a gouty hinge would lift its voice in a loud wail of protest and then a rickety old door would swing open with a bang revealing the gaunt stooping figure of a feeble old man His hair and beard were white and his face was shrivelled like a winter russet He carried an old tin bucket far too heavy for his strength and his mission was not long in doubt From every direction before he had time to call came a hungry horde of chickens with duckings and cacklings of delight and crowded frantically around him Some flew to the old man’s shoulders while others were mak least efforts to conceal themselves in his pail Laughing and chatting with them like an old comrade he soon pacified the flock with food and then the observer might hurry on for the scene was ended The fowls ate and wandered off to their pastime and the old man tottered from view This was Chicken Jimmy village character oldest inhabitant and to the smallest boys an oracle of grave importance in woodcraft and fairy lore For Jimmy as we used to say was just a little cracked and I doubt not he had reason enough to be poor old fellow Until lie passed the prime of life he had been o an unusually laboring man Then his son married against his will — to a vain heartless creature who thought only of style and cheap finery His daughter — well she went away to the city and they ceased to speak of her Next there came a fire one night that took away the little home and the good wife never survived the shock When they had buried her the light of reason went out of Jimmy’s eyes and he became as a little child refusing to leave the tumble-dow- n wood-she- d they had made a temporshelter and meeting all adary vances with a sad vacant smile and a tremulous “No can’t No leave here now — jest me an’ the ing desperate well-to-d- chickens” “Jest me an’ the chickens!” Sim- - |