During the Christmas season a friend sent the littlest boy a pair of bantams, and there is now more spunk on the farm than there has been since my boyhood days, when I used to own a sassy little hen that bore the Gaelic name of "Prabbach." I don't know exactly what the name meant, but it seemed to fit her exactly. These modern bantams appear to be of aristocratic descent, with feathers down to their toes, and the rooster has a haughty bearing that makes me take liberties with "Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue," in order to describe him properly:—

The little bantam can crow quicker, oftener and with more ginger than any other rooster on the place. He has so much steam that I imagine he must have the spirit of a full-sized Brahma or Cochin compressed into the size of a pigeon. He is so cocky that his very appearance seems a challenge. The first time he stepped out into the barnyard the turkey gobbler challenged him to mortal combat and unlimbered for action without waiting for his challenge to be accepted. But, try as he would, the gobbler could not land on the brisk bantam. The little fellow sidestepped every swipe that was made at him, and went on picking up grain as if it were only a fly that was bothering him. And when he scratches in the straw for grain he does it with a vim that seems to say to all the world, "When I scratch gravel mind your eye." But if I could speak hen language I would feel it my duty to warn him about his little mate. She looks so demure that I suspect her of being a flirt.