_THE MATUTINAL ROOSTER_.
Horatio remarks to Hamlet, "The morning cock crew loud;" and I have no
doubt he did; he always does, especially if he is confined during the
performance of his vocal exercises to a narrow city yard surrounded by
brick walls which act as sounding-boards to carry the vibrations to
the ears of a sleeper who is already restless with the summer heat
and with the buzzing of early and pertinacious flies. To such a man,
aroused and indignant, there comes a profound conviction that the
urban rooster is far more vociferous than his rural brethren; that he
can sing louder, hold on longer and begin again more quickly than the
bucolic cock who has communed only with nature and known no envious
longings to outshriek the morning milkman or the purveyor of catfish.
And he who is thus afflicted perhaps may be justified if he regards
"the cock, that trumpet of the morn," as an insufferable nuisance,
whose only excuse for existence is that he is pleasant to the eye and
the palate when, bursting with stuffing, he lies, brown and crisp,
among the gravy, ready for the carving-knife.
But the man who is fortunate enough to dwell in the country during
the ardent summer days takes a different and more kindly view of
chanticleer. If he is waked early in the morning by the clarion voice
of some neighboring cock, he will not repine, provided he went to bed
at a reasonably early hour, for he will hear some music that is not
wholly to be despised. The rooster in the neighboring barn-yard gives
out the theme. His voice is a deep, but broken, bass. It is suggestive
of his having roosted during the night in a draft, which has inflamed
his vocal chords so that his tones have lost their sweetness. It is
as if a coffee-mill had essayed to crow. The theme is taken up by a
thin-voiced rooster a quarter of a mile away, and scarcely has he
reached the concluding note before a baritone cock, a little more
remote, repeats the cadence, only to have his song broken in upon by
a nearer bird who understands exactly the part he is to play in the
fugue. And so it passes on from the one to the other, growing fainter
and fainter in the distance as Shanghai sings to Bantam and Chittagong
to Brahmapootra, until, at last, there is silence; and then, "O hark!
O hear! How thin and clear!" far, far away some rooster sends out a
delicate falsetto note that might have come from a microscopic cock
who is practicing ventriloquism in the cellar. Instantly the catarrhal
chicken in the next yard begins the refrain again with his hoarse
voice; and then again and again the fugue goes round, never tiring the
listener, but always growing more musical, until the sun is fairly up,
the hens awake and the scratching of the day is ready to begin.
The note of the cock has been misrepresented. Shakespeare, following
usage, perhaps, has given it as "cock-a-doodle-doo," and that is the
accepted interpretation of it. But this does not convey the proper
impression. We should say that if human syllables can tell the story
they would assume some such form as:
_Ooauk-auk-auk-au-au-au-auk_!
It is a song that ought to be studied and glorified in print. Think
what a history it has! That identical combination of sounds which
wakes and maddens the sleeping citizen of to-day was heard by Noah and
his family with precisely the same cadence and accent in the ark. It
was that very crow that Peter heard when he had denied his Master. It
is a crow that has come down to us from Eden almost without a moment's
intermission. It is a crow which has passed round the world century
after century, and now passes, as the herald of the coming of the sun.
It may yet be made the theme of a majestic musical composition, now
that Wagner has come to teach men how to build a lyric drama upon
a phrase. Perhaps the coming American national song may have this
familiar crow for its inspiration and its burden. We might do worse,
perhaps, than to take the rooster for our national bird, even if we
reject his song as the basis of our national anthem. We took our eagle
from Rome, as France did hers; would it not have been wiser if we had
taken the cock instead, as France did after the Revolution? The Romans
and Greeks regarded the cock as a sacred bird. The principal thing
that the average school-boy remembers about Socrates is that he killed
himself immediately after ordering that a cock should be sacrificed to
Aesculapius; and some have held that the reason of his suicide was the
vociferousness of the cock, which he wanted to kill in revenge for the
misery it had caused him while he was trying to sleep or to think.
[Illustration: THE EARLY COCK]
The cock is a braver bird than the eagle. He has ever been a bold and
ready warrior, and has worn a warrior's spurs from the beginning. He
has one high soldierly quality: he knows when he is whipped; for who
has not seen him, when defeated in a gallant contest, sneak away to a
distant-corner to stand, with ruffled feathers, upon a single leg, the
very picture of humiliation and despair? And he is vigilant, for
has he not for ages revolved upon church-steeples as the emblem of
watchfulness? He has the homelier virtues. He is a kind father and a
fond as well as a multitudinous husband. He knows how to protect his
family from errant and disreputable roosters, and he is always willing
to stand aside with unsatisfied appetite and permit them to devour a
dainty he has found. He is useful and admirable in his relation to
this world, and he is not without value to the next, for popular
belief has credited him with the office of warning revisiting spirits
to retire from the earth; and when he crows all through the night, the
Katie Kings and other ghostly persons who come from space to rap
upon tables and evoke discordant twangs from guitars are deaf to the
seductive entreaties of the mediums. When
"This bird of dawning singeth all night long,
... then they say no spirit dares stir abroad."
Perhaps the true method of expelling Satan from the land and of
reforming the corruption which afflicts the country is to place
the cock upon our standards and to offer him inducements to crow
perpetually. There should be something to that effect in the political
platforms. A goose saved Rome; why should not a rooster rescue
America? Let the patriot who curses the noisy bird which crows him
from his drowsy couch at an unseemly hour think of these things and
allay his wrath with reflections upon the well-deserved glories of the
matutinal rooster.
I have one neighbor who does not regard the crowing cock with proper
enthusiasm--who is indeed inclined to look upon it with disgust; but
as he has been a victim of the bird's vociferousness, perhaps his
sentiments of dislike for the proud bird may be excused.
The agricultural society of our county held a poultry show last fall,
and Mr. Butterwick, who is a member of the society, was invited to
deliver the address at the commencement of the fair. Mr. Butterwick
prepared what he considered a very learned paper upon the culture of
domestic fowls; and when the time arrived, he was on the platform
ready to enlighten the audience. The birds were arranged around the
hall in cages; and when the exhibition had been formally opened by the
chairman, the orator came forward with his manuscript in his hand.
Just as he began to read it a black Poland rooster close to the stage
uttered a loud and defiant crow. There were about two hundred roosters
in the hall, and every one of them instantly began to crow in the most
vehement manner, and the noise excited the hens so much that they all
cackled as loudly they could.
Of course the speaker's voice could not be heard, and he came to a
dead halt, while the audience laughed. After waiting for ten minutes
silence was again obtained, and Butterwick began a second time.
As soon as he had uttered the words "Ladies and gentlemen," the Poland
rooster, which seemed to have a grudge against the speaker, emitted
another preposterous crow, and all the other fowls in the room joined
in the deafening chorus. The audience roared, and Butterwick grew red
in the face with passion. But when the noise subsided, he went at it
again, and got as far as "Ladies and gentlemen, the domestic barn-yard
fowl affords a subject of the highest interest to the--" when the
Poland rooster became engaged in a contest with an overgrown Shanghai
chicken, and this set the hens of the combatants to cackling, and in a
moment the entire collection was in another uproar. This was too
much. Mr. Butterwick was beside himself with rage. He flung down his
manuscript, rushed to the cage, and shaking his fist at the Poland
chicken exclaimed,
"You diabolical fiend, I've half a mind to murder you!"
Then he kicked the cage to pieces with his foot, and seizing the
rooster twisted its neck and flung it on the floor. Then he fled from
the hall, followed by peals of laughter from the audience and more
terrific clatter from the fowls. The exhibition was opened without
further ceremony, and the dissertation on the domestic barn-yard fowl
was ordered to be printed in the annual report of the proceedings of
the society.
One day while I was talking with Mr. Keyser upon the subject of the
cock he pointed to a chicken that was roosting upon an adjoining
fence, and told me a story about the fowl that I must refuse to
believe.
"Perhaps you never noticed that rooster," said Keyser--"very likely
you wouldn't have observed him; but I don't care in what light you
look at him, the more you study him, the more talented he appears.
You talk about your American iggles and birds of freedom, but that
insignificant-looking chicken yonder can give any of them twenty
points and pocket them at the first shot. That rooster has traits of
character that'd adorn almost any walk of life.
[Illustration: THE AFFAIR AT THE POULTRY-SHOW]
"Most chickens are kinder stupid; but what I like about him is that he
is sympathetic, he has feeling. I know last fall that my Shanghai hen
was taken sick while she was trying to hatch out some eggs, and that
rooster was so compassionate that he used to go in and set on that
nest for hours, trying to help her out, so that she could go off
recreating after exercise. And when she died, he turned right in and
took charge of things--seemed to feel that he ought to be a father to
those unborn little orphans; and he straddled around over those eggs
for ever so long. He never got much satisfaction out of it, though.
Most of them were duck eggs, and it seemed to kinder cut him up when
he looked at those birds after they hatched out. He took it to heart,
and appeared to feel low-spirited and afflicted. He would go off and
stand by himself--stand on one leg in a corner of the fence and let
his mind brood over his troubles until you'd pity him. It disgusted
him to think how the job turned out.
"Now, you wouldn't think such a chicken as that would have much
courage, but he'd just as leave fight a wagon-load of tigers as not.
He got a notion in his head that that rooster over there on the
Baptist church-steeple was alive, and he couldn't bear to think that
it was up there sailing around and putting on airs over him, and a
good many times I've seen him try to fly up at it, so's to arrange a
fight. When he found he couldn't make it, he'd crow at the Baptist
rooster and dare it to come down, and at last, when all his efforts
were useless, would you believe that rooster one day attacked the
sexton as the weathercock's next friend, and drove his spurs so far
into the sexton's shanks that he walked on crutches for more'n a week?
I never saw a mere chicken have such fine instincts and such pluck.
"He is a splendid fighter, anyway, just as he stands. Why, he had a
little fuss with Murphy's Poland rooster here some time back, and
instead of going at him and taking the chances of getting whipped,
that chicken actually put himself into training, ate nothing but corn,
took regular exercise, went to roost early, took a cold bath every
morning and got a pullet to rub him down with a corn-cob. It was
wonderful; and in a week or so he was all bone and muscle, and he
flickered over the fence after Murphy's rooster and sent him whizzing
into the next world on the fourth round.
"I never knew such a rooster. Now, do you know I believe that chicken
actually takes an interest in politics? Oh, you may laugh, but last
fall during the campaign he was so excited about something that he
couldn't eat, and the night they had the Republican mass-meeting here
he roosted on the chandelier in the hall, and every time General
Trumps made a good point that chicken would cackle and flap his wings,
as much as to say, 'Them's my sentiments!' And on the day of the
parade he turned out and followed the last wagon, keeping step with
the music and never dropping out of line but once, when he stopped to
fight a Democratic rooster belonging to old Byerly, who was on the
Democratic ticket. And in the morning, after the Republicans won, he
just got on the fence out here and crowed so vociferously you could've
heard him across the river, particularly when I ran up the American
flag and read the latest returns.
"Yes, sir. Now, I know you'll think it's ridiculous when I tell you,
but it's an actual fact, that that very day my daughter was playing
the 'Star-spangled Banner' on the piano, and that rooster, when he
heard it, came scudding into the parlor, and after flipping up on the
piano he struck out and crowed that tune just as natural as if he was
an educated musician. 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 saw him do it myself. And now I really must be going.
Good-morning."
I think I shall send out and kill that rooster at the first
opportunity. I want Keyser to have one thing less to fib about. He has
too much variety at present.