“No,” replied Clinton.  “A miller lays the eggs, the summer before, on a branch of the tree, and there they stay till about the first of June; then they hatch out, and build their nest.  The nests look something like tents, don’t you see they do?”

“Yes, so they do,” said Oscar.

“That’s the reason they are called tent-caterpillars.  There are three or four hundred of them in every nest.  In about a month from now, they would all turn into millers, if nobody disturbed them, and lay millions of eggs for next year’s crop.”

“That ’s curious—­I ’ve learnt something new by coming here,” said Oscar.

“There, I believe that’s all,” said Clinton, as he cast his eye over the tree; “now come and see my turkeys.”

Jerry slyly winked at Oscar, and both thought of the Shanghae rooster’s letter; but they said nothing, and followed Clinton to a tree near the barn, where there was a large, motherly hen, surrounded by her happy brood.  They were young turkeys, but it was all the same to the poor simple hen.  She had set four weeks upon the eggs from which they were hatched, and no wonder she honestly believed they were her own children.  To confess the truth, they did look so much like chickens, that a city boy like Oscar would hardly have suspected they were turkeys, if he had not been told that they were.  They were black, and of about the size of chickens of their age.  They had also the sharp, piping cry of genuine chickens.  But their necks were a little longer than usual, and that was almost the only badge of their turkeyhood.  The hen was confined to the tree by a string, to prevent her roving off.  A barrel turned upon its side, served them for a house at night.

There was another hen, confined under a tree near by, which was the proud mother of a large brood of chickens.  There were about twenty-five of them, but though they now constituted one brood, they were hatched by two hens.  Clinton said he usually managed to set two hens together, so that one of them might bring up all the chickens, thereby saving some trouble for himself, as well as one hen’s time, which was of some value to him.  Hens do not seem to have much knowledge of arithmetic, and biddy was apparently unconscious of any difference between twelve and five-and-twenty.

A loud and prolonged “Cock-a-doodle-do-o-o-o” now attracted Oscar to the hen-yard near by, behind the barn, where the rest of Clinton’s poultry were confined.  It was a large enclosure, connected with a shed, in which the fowls roosted and laid their eggs.  Its occupants, and indeed all the poultry on the place were the exclusive property of Clinton, and he took the entire management of them in his own hands.  He raised the corn they consumed on a patch of ground his father gave him for the purpose.  He sold his eggs, chickens, and turkeys to whom he pleased, and kept a regular account in a book of all his business transactions.  Of course, all the money he made was his own, and he told Oscar he had nearly seventy-five dollars in the bank, which he had earned in this way.