TRUE HISTORY OF "FANNY FERN."
I was riding through Brookline, Mass., one fine afternoon, on my
round-about way home from a fowl-hunting excursion in Norfolk County,
when my attention was suddenly attracted by the appearance and carriage
of the most extraordinary-looking bird I ever met with in the whole
course of my poultry experience.
I drew up my horse, and watched this curiosity for a few minutes, with a
fowl-admirer's wonder. It was evidently a _hen_, though the variety was
new to me, and its deportment was very remarkable. Her plumage was a
shiny coal-black, and she loitered upon a bright-green bank in the
sunshine, at the southerly side of a pretty house that stood a few yards
back from the road. She was rather long-legged, and "spindle-shanked,"
but she moved about skippingly and briskly, as if she were treading upon
thin egg-shells. Her feet were very delicate and very narrow, and her
body was thin and trim; but her plumage--that glossy, jet-black,
brilliant feathery habit--was "too much" for my then excited "fancy"
for beautiful birds; and I thought I had never seen a tip-top fowl
before.
As I gazed and wondered, this bird observed me coquettishly, and,
raising herself slightly a tip-toe, she flapped her bright wings
ludicrously, opened her pretty mouth, and sent forth a _crow_ so clear
and sharp, and so utterly defiant and plucky, that I laughed outright in
her face. I did. I couldn't help it.
She noticed my merriment, and instantly flap went those glittering wings
again, and another shout--a very shriek of a crow, a termagant yell of a
crow--rang forth piercingly from the lungs of my sable but beautiful
inamorata.
This second crow was full of fire, and daring, and challenge, and
percussion. It seemed to say, as plainly as words could have uttered it,
"Who are _you_? What you after? Wouldn't you like to cage _me_
up--_s-a-y_?"
I laughed again, wondered more, stared, and shouted "Bravo! Milady, you
_are_ a rum 'un, to be sure!" And again she hopped up and crowed
bravely, sharply, maliciously, wildly, marvellously.
I was puzzled. I had heard of such animals before. I had read in the
newspapers about Woman's Rights conventions. I had seen it stated that
hens occasionally were found that "crowed like a cock." But I had never
seen one before. This _was_ an extraordinary bird, evidently.
There it went again! That same shrill; crashing, challenging crow, from
the gullet of the ebon beauty before me. O, _what_ a crow was that, my
countrymen! I resolved to possess this bird, at any cost. And I was soon
in communication with the gentleman who then had her.
"Is this _your_ hen, sir?" I inquired. And I think the gentleman
suspected me, instanter.
"Yes," he answered. "That is, I support her."
"Will you sell her?"
"No--no, sir."
"I will give you ten dollars for her."
Crack! Crash! Whew! went that crow, again. I was electrified.
"I'll give you fifteen----"
"No, sir."
"Twenty dollars, then."
"No."
"What will you take for her?"
"Hark!" he replied. "Isn't that music? Isn't that heavenly?"
"What _is_ that?" I asked, eagerly.
"My hen."
"What is she doing?"
"Singing," said the gentleman.
"Beautiful!" I responded. "I will give you forty dollars for her."
"Take her," replied her keeper. "She is yours."
"What breed is it?" I inquired.
"Spanker," said the gentleman, "but rare. It is one of Ellett's
importation--genuine."
"Remarkable pullet!" I ventured.
"Hen, sir, _hen_," insisted the stranger.
I paid him forty dollars down, and seized my prize, though she proved
hard to catch.
"She's much like the Frenchman's flea, sir," said her previous
possessor. "Put your finger on her, and she's never there. Feed her
well, however, keep her in good quarters, let her do as she pleases, and
she'll always crow--always, sir. Hear _that_? You can't stop her, unless
you stop her breath. She always crows and sings. There it is again!
Isn't that a crow, for a hen--eh?"
It was, indeed.
"Good-day," said the Brookline gentleman, quietly pocketing his money.
"Fanny will please you, I've no doubt."
"Fanny?" I queried.
"Yes; I call her '_Fanny Fern_,'" said the stranger to me, as I entered
my wagon; and, half an hour afterwards, my forty-dollar cock-hen, "Fanny
Fern," was crowing again furiously, lustily, magnificently, on the
bright-green lawn beneath my own parlor-windows.
"Fanny" proved a thorough trump. Bantams, Games, Cochins, Dorkings,
Shanghaes, Bother'ems, were _no_where when "Fanny" was round. She could
outcrow the lustiest feathered orchestra ever collected together in
Christendom. She was a wonder, that redoubtable but frisky, flashy,
sprightly, sputtery, spunky "Fanny Fern."
And didn't the boys run after her? Well, they did! And didn't they want
to buy her? Didn't they bid high for her, at last? Didn't everybody
flock to see her, and to hear "Fanny" crow? And _didn't_ she continue to
crow, too? Ah! it was heaven, indeed (and sometimes the other thing), to
listen to "Fanny's" voice.
When "Fanny" opened her mouth, everybody held their breath and listened.
"Fanny" crowed to some purpose, verily! She crowed lustily against
oppression, and vice, and wrong, and injustice; and she crowed aloud
(with her best strength) in behalf of injured innocence, and virtue, and
merit, exalted or humble.
And, finally, "Fanny" hatched a brace of chickens; and _didn't_ she crow
for and over _them_? She now cackled and scratched, and crowed harder
and louder and shriller than ever. The people stopped in the street to
listen to her; old men heard her; young men sought after her; all the
women began to "swear" by her; the children thronged to see her; the
newspapers all talked about her; and thousands of books were printed
about my charming, astonishing, remarkable, crowing "Fanny Fern."
I sent her to the fowl-shows, where she "took 'em all down" clean, and
invariably carried away the first premium in her class. Never was such a
hen seen, before or since. I was offered a hundred, two hundred, five
hundred dollars for her. I was poor; but didn't I own this hen
"Fanny,"--the extraordinary, wonderful, magnificent, coal-black,
blustering, but inapproachable and world-defying "Fanny"?
"I will give you _eight_ hundred dollars for her," said a publisher to
me, one day. "I want to put her in a book. She's a wonder! a star of the
first magnitude! a diamond without blemish! a God-send to the world in
1854!"
At this moment "Fanny" crowed.
"Will you take eight hundred?" screamed the publisher, jumping nearly to
the ceiling.
"No, sir."
"A thousand?"
"No."
"Two thousand?"
"No, sir."
"_Five_ thousand?"
"No! I will keep her."
And I did. What was five thousand dollars to me? _Bah!_ I had the
hen-cock "Fanny Fern." I didn't want money. My pocket-book was full to
bursting, and so was my head with the excitement of the hen fever. And
"Fanny" crowed again. Ah! _what_ a crow was Fanny's!
"Fanny" couldn't be bought, and so my competitors clanned together to
destroy her. The old fogies didn't like this breed, and they resolved to
annihilate all chance of its perpetuation. I placed her in better
quarters, where she would be more secure from intrusion or surprise. I
told her of my fears,--and _didn't_ she crow? She flapped her bright
black wings, and crowed all over. "Cock-a-doodle-_doo--oo--oo_!" shouted
"Fanny," while her sharp eyes twinkled, her fair throat trembled, and
the exhilarating tone of defiance seemed to reach to the very tips of
her shining toe-nails. "Cock-a-too--_roo--oo_!" she shrieked; "let 'em
come, too! See what they'll _do--oo_! I'll take care of _you--oo_! Don't
get in a _stoo--oo_! Pooh--pooh--poo--_poo_!"
Maybe "Fanny" didn't crow! And _I_ learned to crow. It was beautiful!
She crowed, and I crowed. We crowed together. She in her way,--I in
mine. The duet was mellifluous, cheering, soul-stirring,
life-invigorating, _profitable_.
"Fanny" went into New York State, crowing when she left, crowing as she
went, and continuing to crow until she crowed the community there clear
through the next fourth o' July, out into the fabled millennium. She
crowed Messrs. Derby & Miller into a handsome fortune, and Mason &
Brothers into ditto. She crowed one Hyacinth into the shreds of a cocked
hat and battered knee-buckles. She crowed the Hall breed of old hens so
far out of sight that the "search for Sir John Franklin" would be a fool
to the journey requisite to overtake that family. And still she
_crowed_.
The more they bade her stop, the more she wouldn't.
"Cock-a-tootle--_too_!" "I-know-what-_I_-shall--_doo_!"
"What-do-I-care-for--_yoo_?" "This-world-is-all--foo--_foo_."
"Leave-_me_-and-I'll-leave--_you_." "If-not-I'll-lamm--_you_--TOO--OO!"
And "Fanny" crowed herself at last into the good graces of two _long
brothers_ in Gotham, where she is now crowing with all her might and
main. Let her crow!
She was a remarkable "bird," that rollicking, joyous, inexplicable,
flirting, funny, furious "Fanny Fern." I hear her now again!
"COCK-A-DOODLE--DOO--OO!" "Young 'Un,--you-will-do!!"
"_Et--tu--Brute--o-o-o!!!_"