“Yes, so do I. I had a special sitting of little ducklings under my charge, and they got very tame.  I put them into a basket one day, and carried them into the garden to pick up worms.  I put them down on a bed, and while my back was turned for a few minutes they cleared a whole row of young cabbages that Miss Morrison had just planted.  I got into fearful trouble, and had to pack up my proteges and take them back to their coop in disgrace.  I’d never dreamed they would devour green stuff!  We have to learn to keep strict accounts of the poultry; we put down the number of eggs daily, and the weekly food bill, and the chickens sold, and make a kind of register, with profit and loss.  Miss Carson runs everything on a most business-like basis.”

Miss Heald showed Winona the store-room, where meal and grain were kept, the big pans in which food was mixed, the boxes for packing eggs, and the little medicine cupboard containing remedies for sick fowls.  All was beautifully orderly and well arranged, and a card of rules for the help of the students hung on the walls.

From the poultry department they passed to the Dairy Section.  The four sleek cows were out in the field, but in a loose box there were some delightful calves that ran to greet Miss Heald, pressing eager damp noses into her hand, and exhibiting much apparent disappointment that she did not offer them a pailful of milk and oatmeal.  Winona inspected the cool, scrupulously clean dairy, with its patent churn, and slate slabs for making up the butter.  She saw the bowls where the cream was kept, and the wooden print with which the pats were marked.

“Butter-making is the side of the business I don’t care for,” admitted Miss Heald.  “I like the gardening fairly well, and I just love the poultry, but I don’t take to dairy work.  Of course it’s a part of my training, so I’m obliged to do it, but when my time here is over, I mean to make hens my specialty, and go in for poultry farming.  An open-air life suits me.  It’s a thousand times nicer than being a nurse at a hospital, or a secretary at an office.  You’re in the fresh air all day, and the chicks are so interesting.”

A pen of young turkey poults, a flock of goslings, and a sty full of infant pigs were next on exhibition.  Miss Heald showed off the latter with pride.

“They’re rather darlings, and I own to a weakness for them,” she admitted.  “We put them in a bath and scrub them, and they’re really so intelligent.  Wasn’t it the poet Herrick who had a pet pig?  This little chap’s as sharp as a needle.  I believe I could teach him tricks directly, if I tried!  Miss Carson says I mustn’t let myself grow too fond of all the creatures, because their ultimate end is bacon or the boilerette, and it doesn’t do to be sentimental over farming; but I can’t help it!  I just love some of the chickens; they come flying up on to my shoulder like pigeons.”