Lawton Mackall

“ Rustling her feathers petulantly, she got up.
"Stop!" he cried. "You shall not desert our eggs! I have acceded to your other modernisms—your coop-reform theories, your sex-education for ducklings; I have even come out openly for the single standard of morality;—but this thing I will not tolerate."
"You'd like me to be an insipid nestwarmer like Martha, wouldn't you? Well, I won't, now. I intend to know life!" And, with a defiant waggle of her tail, she departed, to undertake research in distant puddles.
Eustace felt stunned. ”

“ Eustace's heart beat faster.
"I was lonely and homesick," she continued, "but your sympathy makes me forget everything."
"Phyllis!"
His crop heaved.
"Now I am not even sorry!"
"Really? Do you really mean that?"
"Yes. For in that other barnyard there were no drakes as high-minded and chivalrous as you."
High-minded! Chivalrous! How those words singed him! Dazedly he awoke from his wild dream.
"I ... I am not what you think I am," he stammered, conscience-stricken. "I am unworthy. I forgot myself. Forgive me ... I ... I am a married bird!" ”

“ Despite the ill success of his attempt to set Clarence's coop in order, he still pursued his crusade against plural doting.
The unregenerate rooster continued to chaff him.
"Ah there, old top-knot!" Clarence would gurgle. "How's our bright little uplifter to-day? Still busily uplifting?"
But the thrust that got Eustace in the pin feathers was:
"I know why you're such a model drake,—it's because your wife is the only duckess in the barnyard."
"Not at all!" he replied. "The principles for which I stand are absolute. They would be the same if there were a hundred duckesses besides Gertrude!" ”

“ The frame of mind in which Eustace now found himself was not a pleasant one. "I suppose the old scoundrel will tell everybody he caught me sitting on the eggs!" he reflected. "And how those gossipy Guinea fowls will carry on when they hear it!" He picked up the washer again and chewed it malevolently—nyap, nyap, nyap, nyap—ulp!—out it flipped. Oh, what was the use of anything anyhow? Casting one look at the eggs that had been the innocent authors of his undoing, he waddled sadly away and buried his dejected head in the depths of the frog-pond. ”

“ No; you're going to live and be the leader of this barnyard."
The drake shook his head feebly.
"Yes, indeed! You're going to have every honor we can give you! Why, man roast me!—you're the bravest bird that ever was! You've got the real stuffing in you! When I think of the way you showed us as a bunch of yellow-legged white-feathers, I realize I'm not fit to scratch worms for you.—And so here, before everybody, I resign my job as leader right now."
"No, Clarence; they depend on you. And I must pass on."
The rooster turned away to hide his emotion,—he was crying like a chick. ”

“ A week later, the whole barnyard was agog with the news that Martha had hatched out a brood of ducklings.
Gertrude veiled her disappointment over there being really no communal incubator, by remarking sarcastically to her husband, "Well, a hot-nurse is the next best thing, and Martha makes an excellent one. It's all she's capable of."
"But do you think people will understand?" asked Eustace uneasily.
"All who keep abreast of the times will." ”

“ It isn't right to evade the issue by saying, 'Oh, what better morality could you expect among chickens?' No; it is for us of the white-feathered race to uplift and enlighten those of the colored-feathered race, so that when Death comes chopping at our neck, we shall have amounted to something in this barnyard."
Gertrude was softened. "I believe you're right," she said, after a pause. "You have such a noble, high-minded way of looking at things! Yes, you had better go to Clarence and talk this over with him, fowl to fowl, and make him realize the great wrong he is committing." ”

“ You expect a female to give up everything for motherhood, and yet you aren't willing, or are afraid, to do anything to make her life endurable!"
"But I should think you would be happy, with such beautiful eggs as these," he ventured in a conciliatory tone. "Look at Martha: she seems quite blissful over hers, and yet they aren't nearly as large or as white."
This allusion had just the wrong effect. "Now don't try to set up that stupid hen as an example for me!" she snapped indignantly. "All her life she's done nothing but lay eggs and sit on them. ”

“ Two days later, when Eustace was expressing to Gertrude his gratification over having converted Martha to modernism, he was suddenly struck dumb by the appearance of the hen herself. That disconsolate female, with every feather ruffled the wrong way, had a shaky manner and a wild look in her eye that gave promise of an unpleasant scene. ”

“ I'm so bewildered I hardly know what I'm doing—Ah, the poor little thing is all cold!" she added, sitting compassionately upon the pebble; while, unobserved by her, the ducklings tobogganed down the bank into the water.
Gertrude eyed the rooster witheringly. "Whom are you going to fight with about this egg?" she demanded.
"Well, I'll be fricasseed!" said Clarence. Then he turned to the drake. "Eustace, I apologize. And I don't mind saying that you have a remarkably clever wife."
"She's the most wonderful female in feathers!" assented Eustace fervently. ”

“ Gradually this fact dawned upon one fowl after another, till all were in commotion.
"Well, what would you have us do about this Monster of yours?" demanded a hen querulously. She felt that since Eustace had, so to speak, flaunted the objectionable thing in their faces, it was for him to get them rid of it.
"I would suggest, madam, that you retire to a place of security. We males will defend you."
Then going again to the rooster and the turkey, he said:
"Clarence, you had better take command. You know more about fighting than any of the rest of us." ”

“ Don't let me deter you. If you think you can make a modern female out of a feathered incubator, then by all means go and try it."
"I shall," he said confidently.
Quitting the pond with a bold waggle of his tail (would that human beings could thus shake themselves free of all that lies behind them!) , he wriggled sturdily up the bank, and started off for Martha's nest with a magnificent seagoing waddle.
He found the hen sitting on a large brood of eggs. "Good afternoon," he said, bobbing his neck affably. ”

“ They will be hatched scientifically, eugenically. And when our little girls grow up—for some of them may be girls—they will be free women; they will enjoy the happiness of motherhood without its drudgery."
Eustace did not share her enthusiasm. ”

“ All my fighting experience has been in the line of duels—just formal affairs between bird and bird for the sake of ladies' favors—and I can't say I'm very keen for a proposition like this. But Jim, here, ought to be able to make an impression on it: he's the most formidable blusterer going."
"I'm afraid you overrate me," said the turkey hastily. "I—er—I'm willing, of course, to do my share in any general plan that may be decided on. ”

“ And what is the result?—she hasn't an idea under her comb, no, not even sense enough to know that Clarence is carrying on disgracefully with other chickens."
Eustace, feeling uncomfortable, tried to interpose a pacifying remark, but she did not give him a chance.
"It's females like that who have kept our sex in subjection. But I'm not one of them, let me tell you. I believe in a communal incubator." ”

“ Yes, dear,—such a thing might be very convenient, if it were once established,—though I fear it would lack the personal touch. But for the time being, since there isn't any communal incubator, your duty is to sit on your eggs. ”