PART 2 — THE SEVENTEEN-DOLLAR GAMBLE

The chickens poured through the open gate.

For one terrible moment, Mercy Hale thought she had made the greatest mistake of her life.

The birds scattered in every direction, their wings beating wildly as the grᴀsshoppers swept over the field. Some disappeared beneath the moving cloud. Others ran toward the fence, stumbling over one another in their panic.

Thomas shouted above the rattling storm.

“Mercy! Get back inside!”

But she was already moving.

She grabbed a handful of dried corn from the feeding bucket and scattered it across the bare ground.

“Come on, girls! Here! Come on!”

The chickens hesitated.

Then one brave red hen lowered her head and pecked at a grᴀsshopper.

Another followed.

Within seconds, the birds began scratching and pecking furiously.

They were no longer running from the swarm.

They were feeding.

Thomas stood frozen beside the gate.

“Good Lord,” he whispered.

Mercy seized another handful of grain and scattered it farther into the field. The chickens followed, spreading across the ground in a restless, clucking army.

The grᴀsshoppers continued falling.

They covered the fence rails, flattened the weeds, and crowded around the roots of the young apple trees. They chewed at leaves and stems wherever they found them.

But the chickens were working just as relentlessly.

Every time the birds moved across a patch of earth, they uncovered insects hiding beneath ᴅᴇᴀᴅ grᴀss and loose soil.

Mercy watched with her heart pounding.

She had no idea whether seventeen dollars’ worth of chickens could save a farm.

But she knew that keeping them locked away would accomplish nothing.

Across the lane, Silas Boone, the settlement’s oldest farmer, stood beneath his porch roof.

He had laughed loudest when Thomas bought the birds.

Now he called across the road.

“Mercy! Are they eating them?”

“Yes!”

“Will they eat enough?”

“I don’t know!”

Silas looked toward the darkened field.

Then he disappeared inside.

A moment later, he returned carrying two empty wooden crates.

“What are you doing?” his wife shouted from the doorway.

“Getting our hens!”

Within minutes, the old farmer was opening his own chicken yard.

Then another neighbor followed.

And another.

The settlement had spent the morning protecting its grain, its livestock, and its houses.

Now families began releasing their poultry into the fields.

Some birds ran beneath wagons. Others crowded around barns. But wherever the grᴀsshoppers landed, the chickens searched for them.

It was not a miracle.

It was work.

And Mercy understood that work better than anyone.

She moved the portable pens toward the southern field, shouting directions to Thomas whenever the wind carried her voice.

“Bring the smaller frame!”

“Why?”

“The young birds need somewhere to rest!”

Thomas dragged the frame behind him.

By late afternoon, the swarm began moving east.

It pᴀssed over the Hale farm and continued toward the neighboring settlement, leaving behind broken stalks, stripped shrubs, and a silence so sudden that Mercy could hear the chickens clucking in the dirt.

The sky brightened.

Thomas walked slowly across the field.

He stopped beside a row of corn seedlings.

Most had been eaten down to short, ragged stems.

He crouched and touched one.

“It’s gone.”

Mercy stood beside him.

“Not all of it.”

He pointed toward the eastern edge.

There, beneath the shelter of a low rise, several rows remained partly untouched.

The chickens had spent much of the afternoon scratching around that section, but the insects had not settled there as heavily.

Thomas looked at her.

“Do you think we can save the rest?”

“We can try.”

That evening, Mercy counted the birds.

Seventy-three.

She counted again.

Seventy-three.

Two had wandered into the woods, but the rest had returned to the movable pens.

Thomas brought water while Mercy inspected their wings and feet. The birds were exhausted, but most appeared unharmed.

For supper, the Hales ate cornmeal porridge.

Neither mentioned the money.

Neither mentioned the neighbors who had laughed.

But just as Mercy was preparing to extinguish the lamp, someone knocked.

It was Silas Boone.

His hat was in his hands.

“Thomas,” he began, “I owe you an apology.”

Thomas looked up.

“For what?”

“For laughing when you bought those chickens.”

Mercy continued washing a bowl.

Silas glanced toward her.

“I thought you had thrown away your winter provisions. I thought you’d lost your senses.”

“And now?” Thomas asked.

“Now I think my own hens may have done more work today than I have in a month.”

Thomas chuckled.

Silas did not.

“I came to ask whether you’d show me how you built those movable pens.”

Mercy turned around.

“You want to build some?”

“I want to build enough for every family willing to help.”

She looked at Thomas.

He gave a small nod.

“We’ll show you.”

The next morning, the settlement gathered outside the Hale barn.

Men brought broken fencing, barrel hoops, and timber scraps. Women carried feed buckets and water pails. Children collected loose boards and stones.

Mercy demonstrated how to make the pens light enough to move but sturdy enough to keep the chickens from wandering too far.

By noon, six new frames stood beside the barn.

By evening, there were eleven.

For the first time since the winter, the people of the settlement were working together instead of worrying separately about their own losses.

But the swarm had not ended.

At sunset, a rider arrived from the western road.

His horse was sweating, and his coat was covered with dust.

He dismounted outside the Hale cabin.

“Which one of you is Mercy Hale?”

She stepped forward.

“I am.”

The rider looked at the chickens.

Then at the fields.

“I’ve come from a settlement west of here. The insects pᴀssed through our valley yesterday.”

Mercy felt her stomach тιԍнтen.

“How bad?”

The rider removed his hat.

“Worse than anything I’ve seen. They’ve stripped the gardens, destroyed the young wheat, and covered the road so thickly that horses can hardly keep their footing.”

Thomas stepped forward.

“Where are they going?”

The rider pointed east.

“Toward the river settlements.”

He hesitated.

“And there’s something else. A man named Elias Mercer has been telling people that he knows how to stop the insects. He’s selling a powder that he claims will protect crops.”

Mercy frowned.

“What kind of powder?”

“He won’t say. But he’s charging families nearly everything they have.”

Silas Boone spat into the dirt.

“Another man making money from other people’s misery.”

The rider nodded.

“There’s more. Mercer heard about your chickens. He says you’re encouraging people to waste their grain feeding birds instead of saving it for planting.”

Mercy looked toward the field.

The chickens were settling into their pens beneath the last light.

“Then he hasn’t been watching them work,” she said.

The rider shook his head.

“He intends to come here tomorrow.”

Mercy glanced at Thomas.

For the first time, she wondered whether the greatest danger to their settlement might not be the insects.

It might be the man who wanted to profit from them.