ANIMAL WRONGS

My mother, reared in the house on the hill, found herself married to a charmer who figured to get rich on a farm in World War I.

She was a good farmer’s wife, even though her husband went bust. She raised chicks in the kitchen with a stinking incubator and planted a garden, including nasturtiums. But could never bring herself to wring the neck of a chicken until one day one was in her garden pecking peas and she threw a stone at it, amazingly hitting it, and knew she had to kill it outright or lose it. She learned to wring a chicken’s neck right quick.

How about them apples, Bob Barker (“Animal Rights Are No Game to TV Veteran Bob Barker” by Judith Michaelson, June 18)?

I’ve read that rattlesnakes are on the endangered list, which I think is fair enough--I’ve always felt endangered in their proximity.

MARK NICHOLS

Beverly Hills