When the Man first bought the farm and came to live there, he could
not understand a thing that his poultry said. This made it very hard
for him, and was something which he could not learn from his books and
papers. You remember how the Little Girls understood, better than he,
what the Cocks meant by crowing so joyfully one day. It is often true
that children who think much about such things and listen carefully
come to know what fowls mean when they talk.
The Man was really a very clever one, much more clever than the Farmer
who had lived there before him, and he decided that since he was to
spend much of his time among poultry, he would learn to understand
what they were saying. He began to listen very carefully and to
notice what they did when they made certain sounds. It is quite
surprising how much people can learn by using their eyes and ears
carefully, and without asking questions, too.
That was why, before the summer was over, the Man could tell quite
correctly, whenever a fowl spoke, whether he was hungry or happy or
angry or scared. Not only these, but many other things he could tell
by carefully listening. He could not understand a Hen in exactly the
way in which her Chickens understand her, but he understood well
enough to help him very much in his work. Then he tried talking the
poultry language. That was much harder, yet he kept on trying, for he
was not the sort of Man to give up just because the task was hard. He
had been a teacher for many years, and he knew how much can be done by
studying hard and sticking to it.
The Man was very full of fun, too, since he had grown so strong and
fat on the farm. He dearly loved a joke, and was getting ready to
play a very big joke on some of his poultry.
Anybody who has ever kept Hens knows how hard it is to drive them into
the poultry-house when they do not wish to go. People often run until
they are quite out of breath and red in the face, trying to make even
one Hen go where she should. Sometimes they throw stones, and this is
very bad for the Hens, for even if they are not hit, they are
frightened, and then the eggs which they lay are not so good.
Sometimes, too, the people who are trying to drive Hens lose their
temper, and this is one of the very worst things that could happen.
The poultry had not paid much attention to the Man when he was
learning their language. They were usually too busy talking to each
other to listen to what he was saying. Once the Shanghai Cock said
what he thought of it, however: "Just hear him!" he had said. "Hear
that Man trying to crow! He does it about as well as a Hen would."
You know a Hen tries to crow once in a while, and then the Cocks all
poke fun at her, because she never succeeds well. All this happened
before the Man had been long on the farm, and before the Shanghai Cock
had learned to like him. The Shanghai Cock would have been very much
surprised if anybody had then told him that he would ever be unable to
tell the Man's voice from that of one of his best friends.
Throughout the summer the fowls who had always lived on the farm were
allowed to run wherever they wished during the day, and were not
driven into the pen at night. There was always some corn scattered in
their own yard for them just before roosting-time, and they were glad
enough to stroll in and get it. When they finished eating they were
sure to find the outer gate closed, and then they went inside the pen
to roost. Now, however, the days were growing much shorter and the
nights cooler, and a Skunk had begun prowling around after dark. The
Man decided that if he wanted to keep his poultry safe, he must have
them in the pens quite early and shut all the openings through which
a night-hunting animal might enter to catch them. He liked to attend
to this before he ate his own supper, and the poultry did not wish to
go to roost quite so early. They often talked of it as they ate their
supper in the yard.
"I think," said the Brown Hen, "that something should be done to stop
the Man's driving us into the pen before we are ready to go. It is
very annoying."
"Annoying?" said the White Cock, who was a great friend of hers. "I
should say it is annoying! I hadn't half eaten my supper last night
when I heard him saying, 'Shoo! Shoo!' and saw him and the Little
Girls getting ready to drive us in."
"Well, you might better eat a little faster the next time," said the
Black Hen. "I saw you fooling around when you might have been eating,
and then you grumbled because you hadn't time to finish your supper."
"I would rather fool around a little than to choke on a big mouthful,
the way you did," replied the White Cock, who did not often begin a
quarrel, but was always ready to keep it up. "I was hungry all night,"
he added.
"It is so senseless," said the Brown Hen. "He might just as well drive
us in after we have had time enough for our supper, or even wait until
we go in without driving. I have made up my mind not to go to-night
until I am ready."
"What if they try to drive you?" asked the White Cock.
"I will run this way and that, and flutter and squawk as hard as I
can," replied the Brown Hen.
The Black Hen laughed in her cackling way. "I will do the same," said
she. "It will serve the Man right for trying to send us to roost so
early. I think he will find it pretty hard work."
The White Cock would make no promises. He wanted to see the Hens run
away from the Man, but thought he would rather stand quietly in a
corner than to flutter around. He was afraid of acting like a Hen if
he made too much fuss, and no Cock wishes to act like a Hen.
The Shanghai Cock felt in the same way. "I am too big for running to
and fro," said he, "but I will keep out of the pen and watch the fun."
He had hardly spoken these words when the Man and the Little Girls
came into the yard and closed the gate behind them. The poultry kept
on eating, but watched them as they ate. Suddenly the Brown Hen picked
up a small boiled potato that she had found among the other food, and
ran with it in her bill to the farthest corner of the yard. The Black
Hen ran after her and the other Hens after them. The Cocks remained
behind and watched.
The Man and the Little Girls tried to get between the Hens and the
farthest side of the fence. The Hens would not let them for a while,
but kept running back and forth there, until the potato had fallen to
pieces and been trampled on without any one having a taste. When the
Man and the Little Girls finally got behind the Hens, the Little
Girls spread out their skirts and flapped them and the Man said,
"Shoo! Shoo!"
Then the Hens acted dreadfully frightened, and the Cocks began to turn
their heads quickly from side to side, quite as though they were
looking for a chance to get away. They were really having a great deal
of fun. Whenever the Man thought that he had them all ready to go into
the open door of the pen, one of the Hens would turn with a frightened
squawk and flutter wildly past him again to the back end of the yard,
and then the Man would have to begin all over. Several of the Hens
dropped loose feathers, and it was very exciting.
"Well," said the Shanghai Cock, as the Man went back the fifth time
for a new start, "I think that Man will leave us alone after
to-night."
"Yes," said the White Cock, who was standing near him, "I think we are
teaching him a lesson."
He spoke quite as though he and the other Cock were doing it, instead
of just standing by and watching the Hens. But that is often the way
with Cocks.
After the Man had tried once more and failed, he certainly acted as
though he was ready to give up the task. He walked to the back end of
the yard, took off his hat, and wiped his forehead with his
handkerchief. The Little Girls stood beside him, and he picked up a
feather to show them. It was a wing-feather, and he was showing them
how the tiny hooks on each soft barb caught into those on the next and
held it firmly.
The poultry watched him for a while and then began eating once more.
They thought him quite discouraged.
The Shanghai Cock and the White Cock were standing far apart when
somebody called "Er-ru-u-u-u-u!" which is the danger signal. As soon
as he heard it, each Cock thought that the other had spoken, and
opened his bill and said, "Er-ru-u-u-u-u!" in the same tone, even
before he looked around for a Hawk or an Eagle.
Every Hen in the yard ducked her head and ran for the door of the pen
as fast as her legs would carry her. The Cocks let the Hens go ahead
and crowd through the doorway as well as they could, but they followed
closely behind. They were hardly inside when the door of the pen was
closed after them and they heard the Man fastening it on the outside.
"Wasn't that a shame!" said the Brown Hen, who always thought that
something was a shame. "We didn't finish our supper after all!"
"I know it," said the White Cock. "It happened very badly, and all
that running had made me hungry."
"What was the danger?" asked the Shanghai Cock. "I had no time to see
whether it was an Eagle or a Hawk coming."
"What do you mean?" cried the White Cock. "If I had given the alarm
which took all my friends from their supper into the pen, I think I
would take time to see what the danger was. Can't you tell one kind
of bird from another?"
"I can if I see them," answered the Shanghai Cock, rather angrily. "I
did not see this one. I looked up as soon as you gave the cry, but I
saw nothing. I repeated the cry, as Cocks always do, but I saw
nothing."
"Now see here," said the White Cock, as he lowered his head and looked
the Shanghai Cock squarely in the eyes, "you stop talking in this way!
You gave the first warning and you know it. I only repeated the call."
"I did not," retorted the Shanghai Cock, as he lowered his head and
ruffled his feathers. "_You_ gave the warning and _I_ repeated it."
"He did not," interrupted the Brown Hen. "I stood right beside him,
and I know he did not give the first call."
"Well," said the Barred Plymouth Rock Hen, "I was standing close to
the Shanghai Cock, and _I_ know that _he_ did not give the first
call." (Her Chickens were now so large that they did not need her, and
she had begun running with her old friends.)
Then arose a great chatter and quarrel in the pen. Part of the Hens
thought that the White Cock gave the first warning, and part of them
thought that the Shanghai Cock did. Everybody was out of patience with
somebody else, and all were scolding and finding fault until they
really had to stop for breath. It was when they stopped that the
Speckled Hen spoke for the first time. She had never been known to
quarrel, and she was good-natured now.
"I believe it was the White Plymouth Rock Cock in the other yard,"
said she. "Why didn't we think of that before?"
"Of course!" said all the fowls together. "It was certainly the White
Plymouth Rock Cock in the other yard." Then they laughed and spoke
pleasantly to each other as they began to settle themselves for the
night. "We might as well go to roost now," they said, "even if it is a
bit early. All that running and talking was very tiring."
But it was not the White Plymouth Rock Cock who had said
"Er-ru-u-u-u-u!" He and his Hens had run into their pen at the same
time, and had been shut in. Only the Man and the Little Girls knew who
it really was, and they never told the poultry.