By Sherwood Anderson
My father was， I am sure， intended by nature to be acheerful， kindly man. Until he was thirty-four years old heworked as a farm-hand for a man named Thomas Butterworthwhose place lay near the town of Bidwell， Ohio. He had then ahorse of his own and on Saturday evenings drove into town tospend a few hours in social intercourse with other farm-hands.
In town he drank several glasses of beer and stood about inBen Head’s saloon—crowded on Saturday evenings withvisiting farm-hands. Songs were sung and glasses thumpedon the bar. At ten o’clock father drove home along a lonelycountry road， made his horse comfortable for the night andhimself went to bed， quite happy in his position in life. He hadat that time no notion of trying to rise in the world.
It was in the spring of his thirty-fifth year that father marriedmy mother， then a country school-teacher， and in the followingyear I came wriggling and crying into the world. Somethinghappened to the two people. They became ambitious. TheAmerican passion for getting up in the world took possessionof them.
It may have been that mother was responsible. Being aschool-teacher she had no doubt read books and magazines.
She had， I presume， read of how Garfield， Lincoln， and otherAmericans rose from poverty to fame and greatness and asI lay beside her—in the days of her lying-in—she may havedreamed that I would some day rule men and cities. At anyrate she induced father to give up his place as a farm-hand， sellhis horse and embark on an independent enterprise of his own.
She was a tall silent woman with a long nose and troubled greyeyes. For herself she wanted nothing. For father and myselfshe was incurably ambitious.
The first venture into which the two people went turned outbadly. They rented ten acres of poor stony land on Griggs’sRoad， eight miles from Bidwell， and launched into chickenraising. I grew into boyhood on the place and got my firstimpressions of life there. From the beginning they wereimpressions of disaster and if， in turn， I am a gloomy maninclined to see the darker side of life， I attribute it to the factthat what should have been for me the happy joyous days ofchildhood were spent on a chicken farm.
One unversed in such matters can have no notion of themany and tragic things that can happen to a chicken. It isborn out of an egg， lives for a few weeks as a tiny fluffy thingsuch as you will see pictured on Easter cards， then becomeshideously naked， eats quantities of corn and meal boughtby the sweat of your father’s brow， gets diseases called pip，cholera， and other names， stands looking with stupid eyes atthe sun， becomes sick and dies. A few hens， and now and thena rooster， intended to serve God’s mysterious ends， strugglethrough to maturity. The hens lay eggs out of which comeother chickens and the dreadful cycle is thus made complete.
It is all unbelievably complex. Most philosophers must havebeen raised on chicken farms. One hopes for so much froma chicken and is so dreadfully disillusioned. Small chickens，just setting out on the journey of life， look so bright andalert and they are in fact so dreadfully stupid. They are somuch like people they mix one up in one’s judgments of life.
If disease does not kill them they wait until your expectationsare thoroughly aroused and then walk under the wheels of awagon—to go squashed and dead back to their maker. Vermininfest their youth， and fortunes must be spent for curativepowders. In later life I have seen how a literature has beenbuilt up on the subject of fortunes to be made out of the raisingof chickens. It is intended to be read by the gods who havejust eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is ahopeful literature and declares that much may be done by simpleambitious people who own a few hens. Do not be led astray byit. It was not written for you. Go hunt for gold on the frozen hillsof Alaska， put your faith in the honesty of a politician， believe ifyou will that the world is daily growing better and that good willtriumph over evil， but do not read and believe the literature thatis written concerning the hen. It was not written for you.
I， however， digress. My tale does not primarily concernitself with the hen. If correctly told it will centre on the egg.
For ten years my father and mother struggled to make ourchicken farm pay and then they gave up that struggle andbegan another. They moved into the town of Bidwell， Ohioand embarked in the restaurant business. After ten years ofworry with incubators that did not hatch， and with tiny—and intheir own way lovely—balls of fluff that passed on into seminakedpullethood and from that into dead hen-hood， we threwall aside and packing our belongings on a wagon drove downGriggs’s Road toward Bidwell， a tiny caravan of hope lookingfor a new place from which to start on our upward journeythrough life.
We must have been a sad looking lot， not， I fancy， unlikerefugees fleeing from a battlefield. Mother and I walked in theroad. The wagon that contained our goods had been borrowedfor the day from Mr. Albert Griggs， a neighbor. Out of its sidesstuck the legs of cheap chairs and at the back of the pile ofbeds， tables， and boxes filled with kitchen utensils was a crateof live chickens， and on top of that the baby carriage in whichI had been wheeled about in my infancy. Why we stuck tothe baby carriage I don’t know. It was unlikely other childrenwould be born and the wheels were broken. People who havefew possessions cling tightly to those they have. That is one ofthe facts that make life so discouraging.