When the Speckled Hen wanted to sit there was no use in trying to talk
her out of the idea, for she was a very set Hen. So, after the farmer's
wife had worked and worked, and barred her out of first one
nesting-place and then another, she gave up to the Speckled Hen and
fixed her a fine nest and put thirteen eggs into it. They were Black
Spanish eggs, but the Speckled Hen did not know that. The Hens that had
laid them could not bear to sit, so, unless some other Hen did the work
which they left undone, there would have been no Black Spanish Chickens.
This is always their way, and people have grown used to it. Now nobody
thinks of asking a Black Spanish Hen to sit, although it does not seem
right that a Hen should be unwilling to bring up chickens. Supposing
nobody had been willing to bring her up?
Still, the Black Spanish Hens talk very reasonably about it. "We will
lay plenty of eggs," they say, "but some of the common Hens must hatch
them." They do their share of the farmyard work, only they insist on
choosing what that share shall be.
When the Speckled Hen came off the nest with eleven Black Chickens (two
of the eggs did not hatch), she was not altogether happy. "I wanted them
to be speckled," said she, "and not one of the whole brood is." That was
why she grew so restless and discontented in her coop, although it was
roomy and clean and she had plenty given her to eat and drink. She was
quite happy only when they were safely under her wings at night. And
such a time as they always had getting settled!
When the sunbeams came more and more slantingly through the trees, the
Chickens felt less and less like running around. Their tiny legs were
tired and they liked to cuddle down on the grass in the shadow of the
coop. Then the Speckled Hen often clucked to them to come in and rest,
but they liked it better in the open air. The Speckled Hen would also
have liked to be out of the coop, yet the farmer kept her in. He knew
what was best for Hens with little Chickens, and also what was best for
the tender young lettuce and radishes in his garden.
When the sun was nearly down, the Speckled Hen clucked her come-to-bed
cluck, which was quite different from her food cluck or her Hawk cluck,
and the little Black Chickens ran between the bars and crawled under her
feathers. Then the Speckled Hen began to look fatter and fatter and
fatter for each Chicken who nestled beneath her. Sometimes one little
fellow would scramble up on to her back and stand there, while she
turned her head from side to side, looking at him with first one and
then the other of her round yellow eyes, and scolding him all the time.
It never did any good to scold, but she said she had to do something,
and with ten other children under her wings it would never do for her to
stand up and tumble him off.
All the time that they were getting settled for the night the Chickens
were talking in sleepy little cheeps, and now and then one of them would
poke his head out between the feathers and tell the Speckled Hen that
somebody was pushing him. Then she would be more puzzled than ever and
cluck louder still. Sometimes, too, the Chickens would run out for
another mouthful of cornmeal mush or a few more drops of water. There
was one little fellow who always wanted something to drink just when he
should have been going to sleep. The Speckled Hen used to say that it
took longer for a mouthful of water to run down his throat than it would
for her to drink the whole panful. Of course it did take quite a while,
because he couldn't hurry it by swallowing. He had to drink, as all
birds do, by filling his beak with water and then holding it up until
the last drop had trickled down into his stomach.
When the whole eleven were at last safely tucked away for the night, the
Speckled Hen was tired but happy. "They are good children," she often
said to herself, "if they are Black Spanish. They might be just as
mischievous if they were speckled; still, I do wish that those
stylish-looking, white-eared Black Spanish Hens would raise their own
broods. I don't like to be hatch-mother to other Hens' chickens." Then
she would slide her eyelids over her eyes, and doze off, and dream that
they were all speckled like herself.
There came a day when the coop was raised and they were free to go where
they chose. There was a fence around the vegetable garden now and
netting around the flower-beds, but there were other lovely places for
scratching up food, for nipping off tender young green things, for
picking up the fine gravel which every Chicken needs, and for wallowing
in the dust. Then the Black Spanish Chickens became acquainted with the
other fowls whom they had never met before. They were rather afraid of
the Shanghai Cock because he had such a gruff way of speaking, and they
liked the Dorkings, yet the ones they watched and admired and talked
most about were the Black Spanish Cock and Hen. There were many fowls on
the farm who did not have family names, and the Speckled Hen was one of
these. They had been there longer than the rest and did not really like
having new people come to live in the poultry-yard. It was trying, too,
when the older Hens had to hatch the eggs laid by the newcomers.
[Illustration: THEY WERE FREE TO GO WHERE THEY CHOSE. _Page 6_]
It is said that this was what made the Speckled Hen leave the eleven
little Black Spanish Chickens after she had been out of the coop for a
while. They had been very mischievous and disobedient one day, and she
walked off and left them to care for themselves while she started to
raise a family of her own in a stolen nest under the straw-stack.
When night came, eleven little Black Spanish Chickens did not know what
to do. They went to look for their old coop, but that had been given to
another Hen and her family. They walked around looking very small and
lonely, and wished they had minded the Speckled Hen and made her love
them more. At last they found an old potato-crate which reminded them of
a coop and so seemed rather homelike. It stood, top down, upon the
ground and they were too big to crawl through its barred sides, so they
did the best they could and huddled together on top of it. If there had
not been a stone-heap near, they could not have done that, for their
wing-feathers were not yet large enough to help them flutter. The
bravest Chicken went first, picking his way from stone to stone until he
reached the highest one, balancing himself awhile on that, stretching
his neck toward the potato-crate, looking at it as though he were about
to jump, and then seeming to change his mind and decide not do so after
all.
The Chickens on the ground said he was afraid, and he said he wasn't any
more afraid than they were. Then, after a while, he did jump, a queer,
floppy, squawky kind of jump, but it landed him where he wanted to be.
After that it was his turn to laugh at the others while they stood
teetering uncertainly on the top stone. They were very lonely without
the Speckled Hen, and each Chicken wanted to be in the middle of the
group so that he could have others to keep him warm on all sides.
Somebody laughed at the most mischievous Chicken and told him he could
stand on the potato-crate's back without being scolded, and he pouted
his bill and said: "Much fun that would be! All I cared about standing
on the Speckled Hen's back was to make her scold." It is very shocking
that he should say such things, but he did say exactly that.
They slept safely that night, and only awakened when the Cocks crowed a
little while after midnight. After that they slept until sunrise, and
when the Shanghais and Dorkings came down from the apple-tree where
they had been roosting, the Black Spanish Chickens stirred and cheeped,
and looked at their feathers to see how much they had grown during the
night. Then they pushed and squabbled for their breakfast.
Every night they came back to sleep on the potato-crate. At last they
were able to spring up into their places without standing on the
stone-pile, and that was a great day. They talked about it long after
they should have been asleep, and were still chattering when the
Shanghai Cock spoke: "If you Black Spanish Chickens don't keep still and
let us sleep," said he, "some Owl or Weasel will come for you, and I
shall be glad to have him!"
That scared the Chickens and they were very quiet. It made the Black
Spanish Hen uneasy though, and she whispered to the Black Spanish Cock
and wouldn't let him sleep until he had promised to fight anybody who
might try to carry one of the Chickens away from the potato-crate.
The next night first one Chicken and then another kept tumbling off the
potato-crate. They lost their patience and said such things as these to
each other:
"You pushed me! You know you did!"
"Well, he pushed me!"
"Didn't either!"
"Did too!"
"Well, I couldn't help it if I did!"
The Shanghai Cock became exceedingly cross because they made so much
noise, and even the Black Spanish Cock lost his patience. "You may be my
children," said he, "but you do not take your manners from me. Is there
no other place on this farm where you can sleep excepting that old
crate?"
"We want to sleep here," answered the Chicken on the ground. "There is
plenty of room if those fellows wouldn't push." Then he flew up and
clung and pushed until some other Chicken tumbled off.
"Well!" said the Black Spanish Cock. And he would have said much more if
the Black Spanish Hen had not fluttered down from the apple-tree to see
what was the matter. When he saw the expression of her eyes he decided
to go back to his perch.
"There is not room for you all," said the Black Spanish Hen. "One must
sleep somewhere else."
"There _is_ room," said the Chickens, contradicting her. "We have always
roosted on here."
"There is _not_ room," said the Black Spanish Hen once more. "How do
your feathers grow?"
"Finely," said they.
"And your feet?"
"They are getting very big," was the answer.
"Do you think the Speckled Hen could cover you all with her wings if she
were to try it now?"
The Chickens looked at each other and laughed. They thought it would
take three Speckled Hens to cover them.
"But she used to," said the Black Spanish Hen. She did not say anything
more. She just looked at the potato-crate and at them and at the
potato-crate again. Then she walked off.
After a while one of the Chickens said: "I guess perhaps there isn't
room for us all there."
The mischievous one said: "If you little Chickens want to roost there
you may. I am too large for that sort of thing." Then he walked up the
slanting board to the apple-tree branch and perched there beside the
young Shanghais. You should have seen how beautifully he did it. His
toes hooked themselves around the branch as though he had always perched
there, and he tucked his head under his wing with quite an air. Before
long his brothers and sisters came also, and heard him saying to one of
his new neighbors, "Oh, yes, I much prefer apple-trees, but when I was a
Chicken I used to sleep on a potato-crate."
"Just listen to him!" whispered the Black Spanish Cock. "And he hasn't a
tail-feather worth mentioning!"
"Never mind," answered the Black Spanish Hen. "Let them play that they
are grown up if they want to. They will be soon enough." She sighed as
she put her head under her wing and settled down for the night. It made
her feel old to see her children roosting in a tree.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]