Tales of a Poultry Farm Part 11

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 c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.ks 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 c.o.c.k had learned to like him. The Shanghai c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k, 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 c.o.c.k, 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 c.o.c.k.

"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 c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k wishes to act like a Hen.

The Shanghai c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.ks 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 c.o.c.ks 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 c.o.c.k, 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 c.o.c.k, who was standing near him, "I think we are teaching him a lesson."

He spoke quite as though he and the other c.o.c.k were doing it, instead of just standing by and watching the Hens. But that is often the way with c.o.c.ks.

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 c.o.c.k and the White c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.ks 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 c.o.c.k. "It happened very badly, and all that running had made me hungry."

"What was the danger?" asked the Shanghai c.o.c.k. "I had no time to see whether it was an Eagle or a Hawk coming."

"What do you mean?" cried the White c.o.c.k. "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 c.o.c.k, 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 c.o.c.ks always do, but I saw nothing."

"Now see here," said the White c.o.c.k, as he lowered his head and looked the Shanghai c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k, 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 c.o.c.k, 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 c.o.c.k gave the first warning, and part of them thought that the Shanghai c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k 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.

THE LITTLE GIRLS GIVE A PARTY

Late in the fall, when the Man began to talk of shutting the poultry into their own yards for the winter, there came a few mild and lovely days. The Little Girls had been playing out-of-doors in their jackets, but now they left them in the house and ran around bare-headed, as they had done during the summer. All the poultry were happy over the weather, and several said that, if they thought it would last long enough, they would like to raise late broods of Chickens.

The fowls had finished moulting, and had fine coats of new feathers to keep them warm through the winter. The young Turkeys looked more and more like their mothers, for they were already nearly as large as they ever would be. The Goslings and the Ducklings had grown finely, and boasted that their legs and feet began to look rougher and more like those of the old Geese and Ducks. The Chickens were all White Plymouth Rocks this year, and the tiny red combs which showed against the snowy feathers of their heads made them very pretty. Even the Hens who had cared for them since they were hatched would not have had them any other color, although at first they had wished that their Chickens could look more like them.

In the barn all was neat and well cared for. The Man had made Brownie a warm box-stall, so that he need not be tied in a cool and narrow place whenever he stood in the barn, but might turn around and take a few steps in any direction he chose. There was plenty of fine hay in the loft for him, and the place where Brown Bess and her Calf were to stand had also been made more comfortable. There were great bins filled with grain for the poultry, and another full of fine gravel for them to eat with their meals. They had no teeth and could not chew their food, you know, so they had to swallow enough gravel, or grit, for their stomachs to use in grinding it and getting the strength out.

In another place was a great pile of dust for winter dust-baths.

Everything was so well prepared for cold weather that it seemed almost funny to have warm days again. And just at this time the Little Girls had a birthday. Not two birthdays, you understand, but one, for they were twins and were now exactly six years old. They were plump and rosy Little Girls, and very strong from living so much out-of-doors.

Each had a new doll for a birthday gift, and the funniest part of it was that the brown-haired Little Girl had a brown-haired doll and the golden-haired Little Girl had a golden-haired doll. That made it easy to tell which doll was which, just as the difference in hair made it easy for their parents to tell one twin from the other.

When they first awakened they were given birthday kisses instead of birthday spanks, six apiece for the years they had lived, a big one on which to grow, and another big one on which to be good. After the breakfast dishes were washed and put away, their mother made two birthday cakes for the Little Girls and put six candles on each. With all this done for them, one would certainly expect the Little Girls to be perfectly happy. But, what do you think? They could not be perfectly, blissfully happy, because they were not to have a party.

Every year before this, as far back as they could remember, they had been allowed to have a party, and this year they could not have it, because they were living on a farm and there were no other children who could come. It is true that there were two others living quite near, but these two had the measles and could not go to parties. By the time they were over the measles, the birthday would be long past, and so the Little Girls were disappointed.