Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

I22 make my hens lay three eggs at a time, and when it came to settin’, Hooley said his stuff would hatch ’em in a week.” “Hold on,” said young Mr. Watts-Wright, removing Mr. Fraley’s hand from his arm. “T was going to ask you to help me with Dippy McGuire, but I see——” “Listen.” Mr. Fraley’s voice trembled more mysteriously. ‘Punch, pep and pre- cision was what hens needed, Hooley wrote, and he was going to revolutionize the chicken business.” ‘Neve’ mind,” urged Mr. Watts-Wright soothingly. “It’s all right!” “Of course it’s all right. Hooley done me dirt but ’'d made it work if the neighbors’d let me alone. But they began to talk, and so I landed up in a bug-house. It was the mile walks I give ’em that got me in bad.” “Who? Your neighbors?” ‘“No—my hens. That was part of the Hooley system. Give ’em a shot of Hoo- ley’s Hen Hastener and then walk ’em a mile before breakfast. That’s what put me in this bug-joint. You can’t hardly ever get forty-two cross-barred Plymouth Rock hens to walk a mile in a straight line, and when they saw me tryin’ it they had me pinched.” “ZT guess so! Oh, I better be goin’ now. I'll try some other plan for Dippy.” “Listen ‘si Mr. Fraley backed Mr. Watts-Wright against the good doctor’s sanitarium wall. “You try it. You shoot a little syringeful o’ Hen Hastener into a chicken and then gam “GOOD NIGHT,” murmured keys young Mr. Watts-Wright. “ ’Ray “=~ for Hooley! ‘Ray for the hens! Leggo me!” He backed off and then stopped. “Why this chicken-parade, hey, Fraley?” “Drumsticks!” said Mr. Fraley solemnly. “Hooley said him and me was goin’ to develop a new breed o’ chickens if I’d finish his correspondence course. He: said think o’ the youth of the land and the way they liked drumsticks. He said what hap- pened when an average decent American family had chicken dinner? Why, the old folks got all the breast-meat and good stuff and the kids got the legs. And was there ever enough to go round? No—never!”’ “Say, man, I got to get back to my hotel——” Adventure “ “Wait a minute. Hooley said a three- legged chicken built like a milk-stool would help some, and he got me to broodin’ about it. Then he wrote me that the only prac- tical way was to develop their under- pinnin’. He said that by proper exercise and a shot o’ Hen Hastener and beginnin’ on ’em easy with sprints until they could do a mile, there wasn’t any reason why hens shouldn’t have legs thirty inches’n more. Ham-chickens, says Hooley, is what is needed; think o’ nothin’ but measly drumsticks because the old folks git all the white meat. The high cost of livin’, says Hooley, an’ patriotism an’ everythin’ calls on us to breed these yere ham-chickens and speed ’em up to three eggs a day with his Hen Hastener.” “Can it be possible,” murmured young Mr. Watts-Wright, “that Hooley was kid- din’ you? Once in my salad days——”’ “{t can be done,” responded Mr. Fraley. “T studied it and bought five cases o’ Hen Hastener. Everything was all right till one day, tryin’ to walk them hens to exercise the dope into their systems, I had a thought and went flooeyl”’ “Yea, boy,’ said young Mr. Wright gently. ‘“‘Illumine me!”’ ‘‘S’posen I did raise chickens with ham- legs thirty inches long, how’n granny c’d they set on their eggs an’ hatch ’em?”’ Young Mr. Watts-Wright looked at Mr. Fraley, eye to eye. He sighed. Mr. Fra- ley sighed. They even shook their heads together. “T guv one yell out there in the road,” re- flected Mr. Fraley, ‘‘and some folks run f’r the constable. Down here Doc says I’m all right—except I got to be kept away from chickens.”’ “You make me think of Dippy Bill Mc- Guire,” sighed Mr. Watts-Wright. “TI stayed up many a night keeping Bill away from chickens. Ah, of course they couldn’t hatch *em unless eggs came high, too.” Mingled doubt and hope was in Mr. Fra- ley’s eye. “Tt can be done. I got to broodin’ and I took a couple o’ shots of Hen Hastener my- self one time. Can’t say it did me any harm, but I feel different down in my system.” “Oh, happy day! Dippy should meet you! And say—” Mr. Watts-Wright sud- denly grasped Mr. Fraley by the shoulders and looked him firmly in the eye. “See Watts- CORICGLMOOOKS young America gittin” (C@