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Frost and the Marketplace
A Start in the Fancy, page 147
The man with the courage of his convictions was home from the Score Card Poultry Show with a ten-dollar pullet, and the fact got into the local papers and his neighbors dropped by to condole with him.
'Can you see that much money in a hen?' said one.
'Wasn't it this way?' said another, 'the man you bought her of bought another of you for the same price, you both got the advertising, and not a dollar changed hands.'
A third offered the man twenty cents a pound for her live weight. 'It's easy to see she's an extra good hen,' he admitted….
Dalkins' Little Indulgence -- A Christmas Story, Page 1
As a matter of fact it was the kind of bird that is worth what one can get for it. It transcended scoring, as it was better than any score reputable judges are willing to sign. It was a bird framed by nature for comparison judging.
If the man who sold it to Dalkins made the mistake of parting with it for a cent less than fifty dollars, he deserved sympathy, but he was the only one who could see that Dalkins deserved blame. He showed himself a poor loser. He talked early and late to all comers about his misfortune that was another man's fault. But almost all comers had been in the same fix themselves, and knew how to make allowances. They did not believe too heartily in the pricelessness of his bird--a suspicion of which made him but talk the more....