The Hen of the Baskervilles(57)

“Are you hinting that I should bring you fried chicken for lunch?” he asked. “Or did you have in mind a longer term commitment, and you’re coveting those particular chickens? Is it payback time for all the llamas?”

“I am coveting live chickens,” I said. “Not necessarily those chickens, although those are among the breeds I am coveting. Clearly I have spent too much time with all these chickens. I keep having visions of walking out the back door in the morning and chucking grain to eager beaks. Peeking into the coop at night to gaze on my sleeping flock. And taking the boys out to the barn with little matching baskets to collect eggs. It’s insane.”

“Sounds perfectly sane to me.” He strolled over a little closer to the chick display and I followed. “We could have chickens. We’ve got the room. We’ve even got the coop. Remember when the Shiffleys were working on our yard, either renovating or demolishing all those run down little sheds that the previous owner left behind? We could convert one of the renovated sheds into a coop. In fact, I think one of them originally was a coop. And chickens would be a lot more practical than llamas.”

“Only practical if we got ones that are good layers,” I said. “Which these aren’t. I asked.”

“So people keep these for … um … roasting or whatever?” Michael glanced over at the cages and looked uncomfortable, as if the chickens could tell we were talking about their suitability for human consumption. “Because I’m not sure I’d really like eating something that’s been like a pet. I know it’s completely citified of me, but…”

He shrugged.

“I feel the same way,” I said. “And my vision of myself as a chicken farmer does not include going out into the barnyard with a little ax. And in case you’re worried about these chickens, don’t be—according to the owners, no one eats Sumatrans. They’re more feather than meat.”

“Then what are they good for?” Michael asked. “I don’t mean that in a philosophical sense, because obviously they add beauty to the world, and have the same right to their place in the sun as any other creature, but farmers tend not to keep animals around unless they’re either tasty or useful. If Sumatrans aren’t tasty, what do people do with them?”

“Show them,” I said. “And hold cockfights with them in benighted parts of the world where that’s still considered a sport. But here, they are pampered pets and show creatures. Same with those.”

I pointed to one of the Yokohamas across the aisle.

“They don’t lay eggs at all?” Michael asked.

“No, not that one,” a nearby farmer said. “That’s a rooster.”

“I meant the breed,” Michael said. “Do they not lay eggs at all?”

“If they didn’t, we’d have a hard time keeping the breed going.” The farmer chuckled at his own joke. “But with a heavy layer, like a Rhode Island Red, you get four, five, even six eggs a week. With one of these ornamental birds, you might get one egg, and it’d be small.”

A sudden thought struck me.

“I’m not sure we want heavy layers,” I said. “I mean, do we really want to live entirely on scrambled eggs and omelets?”

“You’d need a few hundred of these to do that,” the farmer said. “You thinking of adding a few chickens to your spread?”

“Only thinking,” I said. “But if we did, we probably wouldn’t want heavy layers. We’d need chickens that are friendly enough not to peck the boys. And stoic enough that they won’t freak every time they see Spike. Chickens who can thrive under free-range conditions, because we’re not going to shut them up in a coop all day. And look pretty wandering around the place without a lot of grooming. If they also lay enough eggs to make us more or less self-sufficient in the scrambled egg department, even better. But I don’t want to be sneaking around leaving baskets of foundling eggs on people’s doorsteps.”

“Lot of women sell the eggs for pin money,” the farmer suggested.

Pin money?

“Meg’s a blacksmith,” Michael said. “She doesn’t have time to fool with selling eggs. And you probably don’t have time to research chickens, either,” he added to me. “I’ll figure out which ones fit your specifications and you can make the final decision.”

Final decision? How had we progressed so fast from me coveting a few ornamental fowl to setting up a free-range chicken flock in the backyard? Had Michael, too, been coveting chickens? Or was he trying to be very accommodating to my whims to pave the way for new extravagances in the llama department?