"The Earth."

A man and wife, unsuccessful in farming, set up their "simple" son in keeping hens. He proves surprisingly successful, marries, and eventually turns his parents out of their home.

The story bears comparison with a number of Bates's works that address rural progress, including In View of the Fact That, Day's End, and Spella Ho. Egg-raising features prominently in another story published in the same year, The Loved One.

In the Atlantic Monthly (January 1940), John O'London's Weekly (March 8, 1940), The Beauty of the Dead and Other Stories (1940), Thirty-One Selected Tales (1947), Selected Short Stories of H.E. Bates (1951), Selected Stories (1957), H.E. Bates (1975). Reprinted in Seven Masterpiece Stories (London: Fleet, 1948).