MR DODGE'S CHICKEN-RANCH.

Kumara Times, Issue 1165, 23 June 1880, Page 3

MR DODGE'S CHICKEN-RANCH.

Mr Jaiufes G. Dodge, who recently emigrated from the town of Natick, Mass., to Laurelville, Ala., has signally refuted the popular Southern estimate of the colored man, and has succeeded not only in keeping chickens, but inducing 34 coloured men to work for him without wages. When he casually introduced the subject of chickens his neighbors fcssui ed him that there was an African church within a mile of his newly-purchased farm, and that he might as well try to keep icicles in a hot-house as to raise chickens in such a neighborhood. Mr Dodge was a stubborn man, and, withal, an ingenious One. He determined to prove to the Laurelvillians that he could do precisely what they said he could not do. Accordingly, he offered to bet with Judge Siemens that he would cultivate his new farm with colored labor, ami that he would raise chickens without losing a -single one by colored larceny. The bet was token, and Mr Dodge went to his farm and began operations. With the aid of the Laurelville carpenter, Mr Dodge built a maguificient chickenhouse, with . accomodations for five

hundred feathered guests. The windows < were made so small that noc even a consumptive colored boy could pass through them, and the door was of un- , precedented thickness and strength. In one side of the chicken house, Mr Dodge required the carpenter to leave a. round hole of about two feet in diameter, for a purpose which he declined to explain. When the carpenters had finished their work and had gone home, Mr Dodge unpacked a large bundle which he had received from the North, and after dark he filled his chicken-house with 300 chickens, and, locking it securely, went to bed. About 11 o’clock that night a leading colored citizen of chicken proclivities made his way into the chickenhouse through the hole which had been left open. He chuckled quietly at the - folly, of Mr Dodge in locking the door, and at the same time forgetting to dose the hole in the side of the chickenhouse. When he had selected a dozen of the largest chickens, he attempted to creep stealthily out of the hole, hut found his egress impeded by a series of sharp and projecting spikes. He then realised the fact that he had been 'caught in a trap of much the same general nature as that pleasing variety of mouse-trap into which the mouse readily enters through a wire-lined passage, the pointed ends of which prevent him from escaping. The leading colored citizen’s estimate of white intellect underwent a sudden change, and he sat down gloomily in the coiner of the chicken-house to invent some plausible tale which would account for his presence when the inevitable moment of discovery should come. Half an hour later the minister of the colored church entered the chicken-honse, and was warmly greeted by bis predecessor, who was beginning to feel very lonesome. From midnight nntil dawn the arrivals were almost incessant. The faetthat 300 chickens were in Mr Dodge’s chickenhouse was known in every coloured cabiil Within a radius of two miles, and the oppressed race had risen as one man and resolved to have those chickhens. At half-past three there was standing room only in the 'chickenhofisb, and gentlemen arriving after that hour were compelled to return home disappointed. After a comfortable breakfast, Mr Dodge took his shotgun and the key of the chicken-house, and proceeded to ascertain what luck his trap had brought him during the night. To his great pleasure he found 34 ..able-bodied coloured men in the chicke.n-house, and, after the most careful investigation, he ascertain* cl that not ajchicken was missing., He put no , unpleasant ,/questions ,to the coloured men. whom, he, Jiacl,,caught, as'-to why they had crowded .his,chicken-

house, but he merely informed them that he supposed they had come to assist him in planting, and that he was greatly obliged to them for their kind assistance. At noon Judge Siemens and a dozen white Laurel villains arrived at the farm, and gazed with amazement at the spectacle of 34 coloured men working energetically in the field. When the judge was convinced that no chickens had been stolen during the night, he frankly admitted that he had lost his bet, and, borrowing the money from Mr Dodge, paid it on the spot. Since that day Mr Dodge has never lost a chicken. He has, however, only caught a few sporadic coloured men, and has thus been obliged to hire most of his labour.