Under the Linden Tree

Guo Moruo

我的女人最喜欢养鸡。她的目的并不在研究遗传，并不想、有甚居积，充其量只是想孩子们多吃几个鸡蛋罢了。

因此之故她总是爱养母鸡。每逢母鸡要生蛋的时候，她真是欢喜极了，她要多把些粮食给她，又要替她做窝。有时候一时要做两三个窝的都有。

鸡蛋节省着吃，吃到后来母鸡要孵卵的时候，那是她更操心的时候了。孵卵的母鸡每隔一天要飞出窝来摄取一次饮食的，她要先替她预备好，又要时常留心着不使母鸡在窝里下粪，因为这样是容易使孵卵腐败的原因。还有被孵抱着的孵卵她也要常常把微温的盐水去试验，在水上可以浮起的便是腐败了的，她便要拾取起来，沉下去的便仍使母鸡孵抱。像这样足足要操心三个礼拜，等到鸡卵里面可以听出啾瞅的叫声了，那时候她有两三天是快乐得不能安定的。

我们养鸡养过五六年。鸡雏也不知道孵化过好几次了。但一是孵化了的鸡雏不是被猫鼠衔去，便是吃卷过多得脚气病死了。丑己孵化出的鸡雏绝不曾长成过一次的。

我们又是四处飘流的人，遇着要远徙他方的时候，我们的鸡不能带着同走。在那时我们的鸡不是送人，便是卖给鸡贩子去了。自己养过的鸡怎么也不忍屠杀。所以我们养鸡养了五六年，自己所养的鸡决不曾吃过一次。

我们所养的鸡也并不多，至多不过四五只，我们除把些残菜剩饭给它们外，平常只"干它们去自行渔食罢了。

My wife is very keen on raising chickens. She does this not for studying genetics or making a profit out of it, but merely for collecting more eggs for our kids to eat.

Therefore, she always prefers to raise hens. She will be immensely delighted whenever a hen is laying, giving it additional feed, making it a new roost, etc. Sometimes she finishes making two or three roosts at one go.

We consume our eggs sparingly. My wife has to go to a lot more trouble when a hen is sitting. As the brooding hen will fly out of its roost to seek food once every other day, she has to get the feed ready for it beforehand. And she has to be careful not to let the hen heave its droppings in the roost for fear that it should cause the eggs to rot. She puts all the eggs that a hen is sitting on in lukewarm salty water to test them. Those that float are rotten and must be thrown away; those that sink are kept for the hen to continue brood. She will thus busy herself with all that for as long as three weeks until the yeeping sound comes out of the eggs. Then she will be left in a state of great excitement for two or three days.

We have been raising chickens for five or six years, and brooks upon broods of chicks have been hatched. But the baby chicks were either carried off by cats or rats, or died of beriberi caused by eating too much polished rice. None of the chicks hatched by ourselves live until they were full-grown.

We are a family constantly on the move. When we travel to a faraway place, we can’t take our chickens with us. All we do is give them away or sell them to chicken vendors because we don’t have the heart to slaughter the chickens raised by ourselves. We ate none of our own chickens during the five or six years.

We raised only a small number of chickens, four or five at most. Apart from feeding them with the leftovers of the table, we let them out to seek food by themselves.