A Chick Ducks In

By Marylyn Cork

The feed store owner scooped fifty sunshine-yellow chicks into a crate for me to take home to raise. Those leghorns were cute, yes. But my eye was caught by twenty-five peeping bits of fluff in varying shades of black and brown and white. Oh, the wee strangers! I was well and truly smitten.

“What breed are they? I asked.

“Them? They’re something new we just got in, a South American breed. They lay real colored eggs. Araucanas, they’re called.”

“Colored eggs, no fooling?”

“No joke,” he said. “They’re kind of expensive—sixty cents apiece. If you’re interested, I’ll throw in a couple cheap, seeing as how you’ve already bought so many.”

I cast another glance at the odd-colored little peepers. Real colored eggs, like at Easter? The kids would love that.

“Okay,” I agreed. “Give me a couple.”