Clara Dillingham Pierson

“ The Little Girls helped to cut it into small pieces, and then the whole family, Baby, and all, stood in the sunshine and threw the fragments to the eager poultry, while the dolls looked on. The Barred Plymouth Rock Hen walked inside the box and picked up the many crumbs around the table, while the other fowls fluttered and ran for the pieces outside. The Black Hen always picked for the largest, and the rest chased her. Their manners were certainly bad, but it was the first birthday party they had ever attended, and perhaps it is not strange that they were excited and greedy. ”

“ The Gobbler strutted up and down near the porch, with his feathers on end and his wings dragging. “There is just one thing I like about the Man,” said he. “He does not wear a red tie.”
“I can’t tell exactly what is the matter,” said the Gander, “but he is certainly very different from any Man I ever saw before. I think he must belong to a different breed. The things he has on his feet are much blacker and shinier than the Men around here wear, and that stiff and shiny white thing around his neck is much higher. I hope he is not stupid. I cannot bear stupid people.” ”

“ My friend, who drives in his Hens by imitating the warning cry of a Cock, had been a teacher in a college for several years before he studied poultry-talk, and it helped him greatly.
You see, one must learn much outside of school, as well as inside, in order to be truly well educated. You should never look at poultry and say, “Why, they are only Hens!” or “Why, they are only Ducks!” Quite likely when they look at you they may be thinking, “Why, they are only boys!” ”

“ You see the Man had not lived long enough on a farm to understand the language of poultry very well, so he had much to learn. There are many people who think themselves quite wise and yet cannot tell what one of a tiny Chicken’s five calls means, and there are some Men, even some fathers (and fathers need to know more than anybody else in the world, except mothers) who do not know that a Cock can say at least nine different things with the same cry, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” ”

“ She could not bear to see a Chicken running around with mush on the sides of his bill.
When they had eaten all they wished and ran away to play, she ate what was left and sat down to think. “I would like to be white,” she said to herself. “I would certainly like to be white, and live in style with those fowls who have just come. It must be lovely to be so important that one is taken riding on the cars and lifted around carefully in crates.” ”

“ The Man was very full of fun, too, since he had grown so strong and fat on the farm. [Pg 171] He dearly loved a joke, and was getting ready to play a very big joke on some of his poultry.
Anybody who has ever kept Hens knows how hard it is to drive them into the poultry-house when they do not wish to go. People often run until they are quite out of breath and red in the face, trying to make even one Hen go where she should. Sometimes they throw stones, and this is very bad for the Hens, for even if they are not hit, they are frightened, and then the eggs which they lay are not so good. ”

“ You remember that the Shanghai Cock had always liked the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, and now he thought she should be told how they had come to feel about her friend, the Man. He was not used to saying pleasant things, but having praised the perches made it a little easier for him. You know saying one kind thing always makes it easier to say another. ”

“ Young Turkeys do not eat at all the first day, you know, but they always make up for it afterwards.
When the Hen Turkey walked out of the shed with her family, the Hens in the next yard crowded to the fence to see them. The little White Plymouth Rocks could not understand for a long time why the Turkey Chicks should be so large. “It isn’t fair,” they said. “Those Turkey Chicks will be grown up long before we are!” They thought that to be grown up was the finest thing in the world. ”

“ The brown-haired Little Girl felt that those who were waiting should be amused in some way, so she began to talk to them. “This is our birthday party,” she said, “and we are very glad you didn’t have the measles, so you could come. A party is something to eat when you are dressed up and have company. We have some corn for you because you like that best, but if you are good and polite you may have some of our cake, too.”
By this time the Ducks were there, and each Little Girl began flinging handfuls of corn out to the poultry. ”

“ If there is one thing that a Hen Turkey likes better than taking long walks, it is raising Turkey Chicks. In spite of the weariness and the anxiety, she is very fond of it. And now this one found herself shut in and without her egg. It is true that, besides the pen, she could go into the scratching-shed and the big yard, yet even then there was the wired netting between her and the great world, and her friends were on the other side of the fence. She was just wondering if she could not fly over the fence and be free, when the Man returned and cut some of the long feathers from her right wing. ”

“ After a while she learned to march off at a time that suited her, and let you come when you were ready.”
“Thank you ever so much for telling me,” said the Pekin Duck, sweetly. “It must be horrid to have the wrong kind of children. I promise you that I will not sit on Hens’ eggs.” Then she waddled away.
“I want some Ducklings,” said she, putting her pretty webbed feet down somewhat harder than usual. “I want Ducklings, and I am going to steal a nest at once.” ”

“ The poultry had not paid much attention to the Man when he was learning their language. They were usually too busy talking to each other to listen to what he was saying. Once the Shanghai Cock said what he thought of it, however: “Just hear him!” he had said. “Hear that Man trying to crow! He does it about as well as a Hen would.”
You know a Hen tries to crow once in a [Pg 172] while, and then the Cocks all poke fun at her, because she never succeeds well. All this happened before the Man had been long on the farm, and before the Shanghai Cock had learned to like him. ”

“ THE NEW NESTS AND THE NEST EGGS As might have been expected, the new poultry-house was no sooner finished than the fowls began to discuss who should live in the different parts. They could see no reason why they should not all run together, as they always had done. “Perhaps,” the Black Hen had said, “the Man may put us all together and let the table’s Chickens have pens to themselves.”
“What?” said the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, “put me in one pen and my Chickens in another? ”

“ Fowls are always glad to come to a good supper, and there is much more danger of their coming too early and staying too late than there is of their not coming at all. After that the pans of grain were carried into the house to wait until the right time.
In the afternoon the twins and their dolls came out to the big box which they pretended was their house. The open side of it was toward the poultry-yards, and there was plenty of room between for the fowls who were running free to come in and get their food. ”

“ Then the Hens acted dreadfully frightened, and the Cocks began to turn their heads quickly from side to side, quite as though they were looking for a chance to get away. They were really having a great deal of fun. Whenever the Man thought that he had them all ready to go into the open door of the pen, one of the Hens would turn with a frightened squawk and flutter wildly past him again to the back end of the yard, and then the Man would have to begin all over. Several of the Hens dropped loose feathers, and it was very exciting. ”

“ If a Gobbler sees one of the Hen Turkeys laying [Pg 100] an egg, he will break the egg, and if he meets a flock of tiny Turkey Chicks he will peck and hurt, perhaps even kill, all that he can of them. That is why the Hen Turkeys on the farm had always been in the habit of stealing away to lay their eggs in some secret place. One had even raised a fine brood in the middle of a nettle-patch the year before. She had slipped away from her friends and from the Gobbler day after day until she had laid thirteen eggs, and then had begun sitting. ”

“ All the farm people had been properly cared for that morning by the Farmer from across the road, and felt sure that he would not see them wanting food, so it was not just a wish for something to eat which made every creature there come quietly to a place near the side porch. ”

“ It took four Men to care for us all. Most of us were White Plymouth Rocks. What are those fowls outside? We never saw any that looked just like them.”
“Oh,” replied the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen with a little smile, “they don’t know exactly what they are. The Shanghai Cock is a Shanghai, as any one can tell by looking at his long and feathery legs, but he and I are the only ones who belong to fine families. He is really an excellent fellow, although, of course, being a Shanghai is not being a Plymouth Rock.” ”

“ Both the Gander and the Geese thought themselves exceedingly agreeable, and so they were—when everything suited them. At other times they were often quite cross. Many people act like this, and seem to think it very sweet of them not to be cross all the time. Truly agreeable people, as you very well know, are those who can keep pleasant when things go wrong.
“Ca-mac!” said the three Guinea-fowls together. “There are some of those stupid Geese, who are always walking around and eating grass that is too short for anybody else. They eat grass, and grow feathers for Farmers’ Wives to pluck off. ”

“ The Shanghai Cock was so used to saying disagreeable things every day to the fowls whom he knew, that now, when he really wanted very much to be agreeable, he found he did not know how. There are many people in the world who have that trouble. ”

“ The Drake told her how great yards had been fenced in with wire netting, and how the fronts of the scratching-shed had been covered with somewhat finer netting of the same kind. “Not even a Weasel could get through it,” he said. And then the Pekin Duck wished that the Man would fix a place for her Ducklings where Weasels could not get them. She had never feared such creatures for herself, but when she thought of her children she was afraid. That is always the way, since it is much easier for a mother to be brave for herself than for her children. ”

“ A single Boy of the wrong kind could make all the fowls on the place unhappy, and the others agreed with the Gobbler when he said, “There is one thing worse than a Girl in a red dress, and that is a Boy who throws stones.” ”

“ I find a warm one where the wind cannot blow upon me, and usually there is not enough room for my tail. No Hen can lay comfortably in a nest when her tail is pushed to one side. I have tried laying [Pg 56] under the currant bushes in warm weather, and there one has all out-of-doors for her tail, but on rainy days one has to change. I do not like changes.”
“You do not?” asked the Shanghai Cock. “I thought all fowls liked changes. If you live here in winter, you will be walking from the pen to the scratching-shed half of the time.” ”

“ I always prefer to do what I prefer.”
“We do it,” remarked one of the Guinea-Hens, as she chased the Brown Hen away from the spot where she had been feeding, and swallowed a fat Worm which the Brown Hen had just uncovered.
[Pg 149]
“Yes,” said the other Guinea-Hen, “I guess we are just as good as anybody else.”
“Is there plenty to eat here?” asked the Guinea-Cock.
“Plenty,” answered the Gobbler. “It is much better than it used to be. There is a new Man here, and he takes better care of his fowls than the Farmer did. He doesn’t carry red handkerchiefs either.” ”

“ It is good to have fine grandparents, and it is good to remember them and try to be the right sort of grandchildren for their sakes, but having fine grandparents does not always make people themselves equally fine, and it is not wise to talk too much about what they have been. ”

“ The other Hens said nothing. In nearly every poultry-yard there is one fowl who is so fussy as to make everybody else uncomfortable. The rest become used to it after a while and do not answer back when she talks so. ”