Do you remember what we were telling about last night when that little
tongue told us to stop? The little tongue in the Clock-with-the-Wise-Face
on the mantel?
Oh yes, the first cousins of the chickens who lived in the yard of the
three happy children.
Their first cousins are called ducks. Most of them are white but a few
are black. Their coats are very smooth, and the skin under them sends out
little drops of oil like drops of perspiration. This keeps the water and
the rain from wetting the ducks through and through. You have heard people
say sometimes: "The way water runs off a duck's back." Well, now you know
the reason why.
In rainy weather Hepzebiah wears a blue waterproof with a little hood but
the ducks do not need anything like that. Their everyday coats of white
and black are just as good. If the White Wyandottes cannot get under the
chicken coop or the barn quick enough when it rains, their feathers are all
mussed up but the ducks seem always dressed in their best.
Their bills are different from their relatives'. They are not short and
pointed like the chicken's but broad and long.
And they have what are called web feet. Between the toes are pieces of
skin, thick and tough like canvas. These web feet are like small oars or
paddles. With them they can push against the water of the pond and swim
quite fast.
The ducks are very fond of the pond but their cousins think it a dreadful
place.
"Cluck, cluck," say the White Wyandottes, "what a foolish way of spending
your time, sailing on the water when there are fat, brown worms to dig for
in the nice earth!"
You see animals, like people, like different things. The world wouldn't be
half so interesting if we all liked the _same_ things, would it?
The other night Jehosophat felt very foolish when he came in to supper. His
mother looked behind his ears and said: "Why you are just as afraid of the
water as the chickens."
Did you ever hear of such a thing!
Now the chickens have _second_ cousins too. Their second cousins are
the white geese.
They live on the other side of the tall fence that looks as if it were made
of crocheted wire. Sometimes Jehosophat's father opens the gate in the
fence and lets the geese wander down to the pond. A silly way they have
of stretching out their long white necks and crying, "Hiss, hiss!" This
frightens Hepzebiah who always runs away. Then the geese waddle along in
single file, that is one by one, like fat old ladies crossing a muddy
street on their way to sewing society.
Jehosophat says that the chickens have third cousins too,--the swans. There
they are, way out on the pond, sailing along like white ships. Their necks
are very long and snowy white and they bend in such a pretty way. And their
soft white wings look something like the wings of the angels on the
Christmas cards.
Jehosophat, Marmaduke, and Hepzebiah do not like one barnyard neighbour
very much. It is the guinea-hen. She has a grey body, plump as a sack of
meal, with little white speckles, a funny neck and such a small head with a
tuft on top. She screeches horribly and Marmaduke calls her "Miss
Crosspatch."
But the turkey with his proud walk is just funny. And yet Farmer Green says
he hasn't any sense of humour. Ask _your_ father how that can be if he
is funny.
"Mr. Stuckup" the children call the turkey. He walks along slowly, swinging
from side to side. His feathers are brownish-black or bronze, and his tail
often spreads out like a fan. He has the funniest nose. It is red and soft
and long and flops over his bill on his chest.
He calls "gobble, gobble, gobble," all the time, yet he does not gobble as
much as the busy White Wyandottes all around him who are forever looking
for kernels of corn or worms or bugs.
But who is this magnificent creature coming along over the lawn under the
cherry-tree? Uncle Roger, who sails around the world in a great ship with
white sails, gave him to the children. He brought him from a land very far
across the seas.
He is the peacock and is all green and gold and blue. On his head is a
little crown of feathers. His tail, too, can spread out like a fan the way
"Mr. Stuckup's," the turkey's, does. But it is ever so much more beautiful.
It is green and has hundreds of blue eyes in it. The three children call
him the "Party Bird" for he is always so dressed up, but their father says
he is "a bit of a snob." He means that he is vain and will not have much to
do with his plainer neighbours of the barnyard--
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven." There goes the clock again.
Tomorrow night, if you are good all day, we will tell you about the rest
of the barnyard friends of the three happy children. Then the next night,
about the exciting things that happened to them.
Good-night! Sweet Dreams!