ABSTRACT
The gentle little spring chicken is sweet and adorable above all its kindred poultry. It is innocent and guileless as Bellini's angels, dream-like and strange as Botticelli's. It is the very concentration of spring; as our teeth meet in its tender, yielding flesh, we think, whether we will or no, of violets and primroses, and hedgerows white with May. Fried chicken! To write the word is to be carried back to the sunny South; to see, in the mind's eye, the old, black, fat, smiling mammy, in gorgeous bandanna turban, and the little black piccaninnies bringing in relays of hot muffins. As the chicken outgrows the childish state, we may go to Monte Carlo in search of one hint, at least, for its disposal. Where the artist dwells, in the blessed marmite itself, in unimaginative London even, you may buy one, green or brown, whichever you will, at a delightful shop in Shaftesbury Avenue.
