Rooster

“ And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence
O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the
stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. ”

“ The ordinary rooster did not trouble himself to crow save at midnight and in the morning, but the swart bird of which we speak detected the vaam of any unseen presence, and announced the same by crowing at any hour. ”

“ Just then a daring little white bantam rooster hopped down from his perch, and, strutting pompously over to the big rooster, created quite a stir among the feathered folk by saying,
“We’re all lively enough when our crops are full, but when we’re starving the wonder is that we can hold our heads up at all. If I ever see that farmer’s boy again, I’ll—I’ll peck his foot!” ”

“ The rooster is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather. Midas is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather. The rooster thinks only of the moment; Midas provides for to-morrow. What does he provide for to-morrow? Nothing that the rooster will not have without providing.
The rooster and the prosperous worker: they are born, they grub, they love; they grub and love grubbing; they grub and they die. ”

“ An elephant beside it would have seemed like a flea; and following behind came countless flocks of birds, each one more beautiful and brilliant than the other. When the old man saw the rooster so huge and fat, he opened the gate for it. "Master," said the bird, "spread a sheet here in the middle of the yard."
The old man, as nimble as a top, laid down the sheet. The rooster took its stand upon it, spread its wings, and instantly the whole yard was filled with birds and herds of cattle, but it shook out on the sheet a pile of ducats that flashed in the sun till they dazzled the eyes. ”

“ A rooster! splendid!—why, a rooster's better than an eight-day clock. The rooster will crow every morning, at four, and tell us when it is time to pray to God and set about our work. What would we have done with a goose? I don't know how to cook one, and as for the quilt, Heaven be praised, there's no lack of moss a great deal softer than down. So, let us put the rooster in the corn-yard!'
'I have not brought even the rooster,' murmured Gudbrand, 'for, at sundown, I felt very hungry, and had to sell my rooster for a shilling to buy something to eat. ”

“ Again and again the victorious green and gold rooster jumped upon his prostrate foe, pecking now at his crop, now at his eyes, in a perfect frenzy of triumphant rage, the little white fellow lying so still meanwhile that everyone thought him dead. ”

“ I believe that many an old rooster will so beplume himself and take on such an extra strut, that he will at last succeed in forcing himself as a young bird between the teeth of our clerical visitors. This will be a sweet revenge. ”

“ Back and forth through the sloping lot the ploughman slowly turns the dingy sward, and in the rich brown furrow, following in his track, we see the cackling troop of hens, and the lordly rooster, with great ado, searches out the dainty tidbits for his motley crowd of favorites. The whole landscape has become infused with human life and motion. Wherever the eye may turn it sees the evidences of varied and hopeful industry. Yonder we notice an oft-recurring little puff of mist, like a burlesque snow-drift, ever and anon bursting into view, and softly vanishing against the sward ”

“ A slang term used occasionally by journalists and members of the theatrical profession as an equivalent for “banter” or “ridicule,” as in a press notice.
rooster: A word often incorrectly restricted in its meaning. This is due in a measure to usage as recorded by lexicographers. If a roost is a perch upon which fowls rest at night, then a rooster is any fowl which perches on a roost, be it cock or hen. But the domestic fowl is not the only bird that roosts, therefore any bird that does so, be it what it may, is as much a rooster as the male or female domestic fowl. ”

“ The young rooster, though blind of one eye, saw quite enough of the situation to make him apprehensive, but the younger urchin had him tight under his arm, and, still under the exciting influences of the chase and capture, the boys stood once more before my host, with panting bodies, flushed cheeks, and tufts of yellow hair sprouting out through crevices of those wondrous old hats, which had evidently just seen service in the capture. ”

“ The bird that is able to fall deepest into the earth shall be your king." [240]
The Rooster had a plan of his own in mind when he said this. As all the birds began to look about for places to jump into deeper places, and the Duck tried to see how long he could hold his head under water, the Rooster called to the Hen. He instructed the Hen to scratch, and when she had made a deep hole, he hid himself in it. ”

“ You see, there were three crows—there was Bill’s crow, and the ventriloquist crow, and the white rooster’s crow— and each rooster thought that there was two roosters in the opposition camp, and that he mightn’t get fair play, and, consequently, both were afraid to put up their hands. ”

“ In the midst of this brawl, the white rooster, who prefers to do all the fighting himself, flies up, and knocks them both down into the barn floor, when every hen in the barn screams out at the top of her voice, “Served them right!” ”

“ Positive truth; and he beat time with his tail. He don't crow like any other rooster. Every morning he works off selections from Beethoven and Mozart and those people, and on Sundays he frequently lets himself out on hymn-tunes. I've known him to set on that fence for more'n an hour at a time practicing the scales, and he nearly kicked another rooster to death one day because that rooster crowed flat. ”

“ I have fired at that same fox to kill. I have lost many a rooster, but those I have not lost are many, many more. Browned to a turn, and garnished with parsley, a rooster is almost a poem. So was that wild fox, the other morning, almost a poem, standing on the bare knoll here near the house, his form half-shrouded in the early mist, his keen ears pricked, his pointed nose turned toward the yard where the hens were waking up. ”

“ In fact there is not much to be said for the bee, not much that the public can understand; for it is neither the bee nor the eagle that is the true American bird, but the rooster. In one of my neighboring towns five thousand petitioners recently prayed the mayor that they be allowed to let their roosters crow. ”

“ Grown steady in his eyes.
I love to watch
The chickens in a barn-yard. Nothing else
Is quite so near the human brood. You’ll see
Invariably a rooster stalk about
In aimless fashion, moving here and there,
Picking at times with dull inappetence
At grains or grit, or standing for a time
In listless revery. I never saw
A man with such resemblance to this rooster
As this man was.
At last we had not seen
Our man upon the street for several days.
And some one said he had been very ill.
His wife had fears and wept and said ’twas hard
Just on the eve of great success to die. ”

“ THE GALLANT ROOSTER The dictionary makers derive the word gallant from all sorts of roots in divers languages, meaning gay, brave, festive, proud, lascivious, and so on. Why not derive if from the Latin gallus, rooster? A rooster combines in himself all the different meanings of the word gallant. He is showy in appearance, brave, daring, attentive to females, and, above all, chivalrous, that is, inclined to show disinterested courtesy to the weaker sex, as we have just seen. In this last respect, it is true, the rooster stands not alone. ”

“ There is our white rooster, the spirit of an old chief, which appears during the new moon—perfectly harmless and friendly, but the people rather dread him. Then we have a ghostly pig, very bad indeed; and a pair of malignant women, who walk about at night with arms and long hair entwined, and are suspected of ghastly appetites. ”

“ Rooster.
“There have been many young roosters in the barn-yard, but they have gone away to other farms to live, for the master has an eye for beauty, and he has always decided that I was too—er—valuable to lose.”
Mr. Dog and Mr. Tom Cat smiled a little on the side at this last remark, for they well knew how vain Mr. Rooster was, and then he really did have fine feathers and a beautiful comb.
“I have never had any trouble with my [Pg 186] family until one morning Madam Blackie came running to me,” continued Mr. Rooster, “to tell me a new rooster had come in the barn-yard to live.” ”

“ Besides owning his flag-waving comb, his spurs and brighter feathers, the rooster struts to attract the female, and fights aggressively with his sex competitors. When he is made a capon, he loses his spurs and comb and distinctive plumage, and in addition becomes retiring and submissive, in short, a pseudo-hen in his instincts as well as in appearance. ”

“ When a rooster gits whipped the hens all march off with the other rooster if he aint haff so big, or so hansum. It is pluck that wins a hen. Roosters az a class wont do enny household work; yu kant git a rooster tew pay enny attenshun tew a yungone. They spend most ov their time in crowing and strutting, and once in a while they find a worm, which they make a grate fuss over, calling their wives up from a distance, apparently tew treat them, but jist az the hens git thare, this elegant cuss bends over, and gobbles up the worm. ”

“ Sometimes the roosters would fight, but they didn't fight very hard, for they were not the kind that fight hard.
All the roosters and the hens and the chickens that were half grown up flew up into the trees when it was beginning to be dark, and they sat on the branches in long rows, and put their heads under their wings and went to sleep. The very old rooster and most of the hens roosted in the apple-trees in the orchard, but some of the hens roosted in other trees. ”

“ At last, when the wakeful man thinks the row is over, the roosters, the meanest, skinniest, loudest-mouthed roosters in the world, continue the serenade until death seems a welcome, especially the death of the roosters. ”

“ Whereat the colt, eyes wide with terror, whirled to his mother, whimpering babyishly. But with the mare standing beside him and caressing him reassuringly, all his nervousness left him, and he again turned his eyes upon the rooster and watched him till the cock, unable to stir combat among his neighbors, left the fence with another loud flapping of wings, and returned to earth, physically and spiritually, there to set 23 up his customary feigned quest for worms for the ladies. ”

“ I took the bag and tied it securely on the bee. Then I unsaddled the rooster and mounted the bee. The rooster, poor thing, was so tired that I had to take him by the hand and lead him along beside us.
"Father!" the Princess cried, "did you hear that? He took the rooster by the hand! Isn't that funny!"
"Umph!" grunted the Tsar, and the first lady-in-waiting whispered:
"Hush! Let the young man finish!"
Whilst we were crossing the bridge, the string of the bag broke and all my millet spilled out. When night came I tied the rooster to the bee and lay down on the [19] seashore to sleep. ”

“ The flesh ov the rooster is very similar tew the flesh ov the hen; it is hard tew distinguish the diffrence espeshily in yure soup. Roosters are the pugilists amung the domestik burds; they wear the belt, and having no shoulder tew strike from, they strike from the heel. ”

“ But roosted on the fence, with a handful of corn, Jonathan's fears were at rest, and he fed the chickens, drove the old roosters nearly wild with long and loud crowing, and sometimes made a hasty jump into the yard to set two ruffled, ambitious roosters fighting. ”

“ Bring the edges of the cover together down the neck and body; when fitted lift the cover, put paste here and there on its under side near the edge, replace the cover and it will stick fast; then, with the top of a wire hairpin, push the edges of the cover, front and back, in between the open prongs of the clothespin. Ink round bits of paper and paste on the rooster for eyes; make his comb and wattles of red tissue paper (Fig. 105) , and you will have a fine rooster which can actually [58]
Move His Little Cotton Head
up and down, fast or slow, as you wish. ”

“ Sparrows are early roosters. Something approaching three thousand of them are now perched in that small hedge, yet none are visible except those that pop in and out, when jockeyed out of positions they have taken up. ”

“ If these birds are disturbed when feeding or bathing, they do not make for the nearest cover as most other birds do: they insist on running across the road, thereby giving the grateful sportsman a clear shot. The domestic rooster has the same habit. So has the Indian child. ”

“ The cocks advance slowly. Their little steps are heard upon the hard floor. Nobody speaks; nobody breathes. Lowering and raising their heads, as if measuring each other with a look, the two roosters mutter sounds, perhaps of threat or contempt. ”

“ Whoever has watched a pair of very young roosters in the act of combat, knows how each one makes a peck and then draws off and stands upon the defensive, vigilant and defiant; another peck—then another rest, neither one giving in or running away until some intruder parts them. ”

“ With young game roosters this is a favorite way to train them to stand up properly and hold their heads up. A piece of raw liver or a cabbage is hung in their cage for them to peck at, and through the constant reaching up they get into the habit of carrying their heads high and haughtily. ”

“ Certainly a most interesting sight for the naturalist to see so many of these lovely, lively, likely creatures passing over, about and around you, all governed by one idea, all driven by one common impulse, all eager to reach the same aim, the common roost! Where is the roost? Where do all these birds spend the night? How do they retire in the evening, and what is their conduct when they leave their night-quarters in the morning? ”