Already Aileen’s poultry farm was flourishing. The three bad-tempered hens had applied themselves to their duties with such concentration that three dozen half-fledged chicks now followed them about.  Others had been set to rear turkeys and ducks, and these, too, flourished; although the unpleasant propensity of young turkeys for expiring without warning had done much to age Garth, who fed them once an hour with clockwork regularity.  The fowls purchased from Mother Coffey had done well. Garth knew all their nests which was saying something, as the Bush fowl changes her nest frequently, in the hope of finding a corner sufficiently well concealed to prevent prying humans from robbing her of her eggs.  In the store-room kerosene tins in steadily increasing numbers held eggs, put by in waterglass to sell in the winter; and meanwhile the hotels and stores, and the summer visitors, demanded all that could be spared, and paid good prices for vegetables, at which Tom and Aileen worked early and late. ’Possum did the marketing, with her own goods, unwillingly accepting a small commission.  "I won’t let you do it unless we pay you," Aileen had said.  "And think of the wretched prices I should get!  I should never have courage to ask half the money you make people pay!"