Alan Perkin owned Perkin’s Candy, famous for its saltwater taffy. He was introduced to the business by his father, who taught him to hire pretty girls just out of high school to stand in the store window and pull. The girls had to be skilled, and would go through a rigorous training program in the back room of the store before being allowed up front. People often made special trips to go to Perkin’s, just to stand outside the large glass windows and watch the pretty girls in their hairnets stretch, attach, and twist the long, shining goo between them. The business was a successful one, in that it allowed Mr. Perkin to provide his wife with an ample house, several servants, and the means to support her hobby of raising chickens.

It pleased Mrs. Perkin to have a morning ritual, and something about the clucking and spreading of chicken feed made her feel productive. Each morning, Mary, the cook, helped Mrs. Perkin on with her apron—a pinafore of sorts to protect the front of her dress from soiling. Then Mrs. Perkin opened the door to the backyard, picked up the basket of seed set there earlier by the gardener, opened her mouth, and began to cluck.

Before her marriage, Mrs. Alan Perkin had trained briefly for a position as a veterinary nurse. One day Mrs. Perkin (née Diana Walmut) turned a page in her zoological textbook and came upon a skeletal diagram of Gallus gallus, the wild red jungle chicken of Southeast Asia. She was taken with the curve of the beak, the diminutive skull, and the fine, thin bones that fanned out to form the base of the wings. It looks like a little freak baby, she thought. A tiny freak baby with enormous hands. Diana, the soon-to-be Mrs. Perkin, wept, and from that moment fell in love with poultry.

Mrs. Perkin slid her hand into the basket of seed. How cool and dry it felt! She ran her fingers back and forth and thought of pebbles, of sand, of starlight. A rustling began in the corner shed as the hens made their way down the ramp. Their tiny heads turned and bobbed together in short, rapid movements, as if it took all the power of their little brains to decide that yes, there was noise, and yes, that noise meant food, and yes, they must move to the noise to get the food.

Mrs. Perkin clucked louder and looked for Romeo, her rooster. Romeo had once been a champion cock fighter. His spurs were cut for steel gaffs, used to rip open the throats of his opponents. His feathers were a glistening blue-black color and his comb was a brilliant yellow. Set against that shining dark plumage, it made him look like a king.