A schoolteacher named Miss Larkin ordered a dozen for her elderly parents, and a traveling salesman who stopped in Meade once a month asked Martha to reserve two cartons whenever his route brought him through. Vera began using clean, stamped paper labels that read ALDREN FARM, MEADE COUNTY, and recorded every carton that left her kitchen.
The label mattered to her. Her father had built a reputation for paying debts on time and selling honest grain, but his name had never been printed on anything people bought in town. Seeing ALDREN FARM on a carton made Vera feel she was carrying something of his work into places he had never expected to reach. It was not glamour, and it was certainly not wealth. It was simply proof that a farm could become known for something besides the size of its losses.
Not every customer was impressed. One man returned a carton because he said the shells looked unnatural, and another complained that the yolks were too orange to be ordinary eggs. Martha refunded the first purchase and invited the second man to buy whatever he preferred. Vera recorded both incidents in her notebook and considered whether she ought to explain the shell color on her label. She decided against making claims she could not prove, adding only that the eggs came from a small flock raised on her own farm and were collected frequently.
In late September, she received word that a suitable rooster could be sent from a farm outside Wichita. The seller wanted a price that made her hesitate, plus the expense of transporting the bird safely. Vera compared the amount with what she had earned from Martha and what she would lose if the breeding experiment could not begin. Then she sent payment, told herself she was doing the same kind of arithmetic her father had done when purchasing seed, and waited for the delivery. The rooster arrived in a wooden crate one chilly morning, proud, sharp-eyed, and more silver at the neck than any of the hens.
Vera kept him apart at first, checking his health before allowing him near the main flock. She studied his comb, weight, feather pattern, and appetite, and she wrote to the seller asking for everything he knew about the parent birds. The answer was incomplete, but it was enough to suggest that the Missouri source had once kept a recognizable line rather than casually crossing random farmyard chickens. Vera named the rooster Number Thirteen in her notebook, refusing to let herself become too fond of an animal whose value would have to be demonstrated rather than assumed.