Among the Farmyard People
Page 6
THE WONDERFUL SHINY EGG
"CUT-CUT-CA-DAH-CUT! Cut-cut-cut-ca-dah-cut!" called the Dorking Hen, asshe strutted around the poultry-yard. She held her head very high, andpaused every few minutes to look around in her jerky way and see whetherthe other fowls were listening. Once she even stood on her left footright in the pathway of the Shanghai Cock, and cackled into his veryears.
Everybody pretended not to hear her. The people in the poultry-yard didnot like the Dorking Hen very well. They said that she put on airs.Perhaps she did. She certainly talked a great deal of the place fromwhich she and the Dorking Cock came. They had come in a small cage froma large poultry farm, and the Dorking Hen never tired of telling aboutthe wonderful, noisy ride that they took in a dark car drawn by a great,black, snorting creature. She said that this creature's feet grew on tohis sides and whirled around as he ran, and that he breathed out of thetop of his head. When the fowls first heard of this, they were muchinterested, but after a while they used to walk away from her, or makebelieve that they saw Grasshoppers whom they wanted to chase.
When she found that people were not listening to her, she cackled louderthan ever, "Cut-cut-ca-dah-cut! Look at the egg--the egg--the egg--theegg that I have laid."
"Is there any particular reason why we should look at the egg--theegg--the egg--the egg that you have laid?" asked the Shanghai Cock, whowas the grumpiest fowl in the yard.
Now, usually if the Dorking Hen had been spoken to in this way, shewould have ruffled up her head feathers and walked away, but this timeshe had news to tell and so she kept her temper. "Reason?" she cackled."Yes indeed! It is the finest egg that was ever laid in thispoultry-yard."
"Hear her talk!" said a Bantam Hen. "I think it is in very poor taste tolay such large eggs as most of the Hens do here. Small ones are muchmore genteel."
"She must forget an egg that I laid a while ago with two yolks," said aShanghai Hen. "That was the largest egg ever laid here, and I havealways wished that I had hatched it. A pair of twin chickens would havebeen so interesting."
"Well," said the Dorking Hen, who could not keep still any longer,"small eggs may be genteel and large ones may be interesting, but mylast one is bee-autiful."
"Perhaps you'd just as soon tell us about it as to brag withouttelling?" grumbled the Shanghai Cock. "I suppose it is grass color, orsky color, or hay color, or speckled, like a sparrow's egg."
"No," answered the Dorking Hen, "it is white, but it is shiny."
"Shiny!" they exclaimed. "Who ever heard of a shiny egg?"
"Nobody," she replied, "and that is why it is so wonderful."
"Don't believe it," said the Shanghai Cock, as he turned away and beganscratching the ground.
Now the Dorking Hen did get angry. "Come to see it, if you don't believeme," she said, as she led the others into the Hen-house.
She flew up to the row of boxes where the Hens had their nests, andpicked her way along daintily until she reached the farthest one. "Nowlook," said she.
One by one the fowls peeped into the box, and sure enough, there itlay, a fine, shiny, white egg. The little Bantam, who was really ajolly, kind-hearted creature, said, "Well, it is a beauty. I should beproud of it myself."
"It is whiter than I fancy," said the Shanghai Cock, "but it certainlydoes shine."
"I shall hatch it," said the Dorking Hen, very decidedly. "I shall hatchit and have a beautiful Chicken with shining feathers. I shall not hatchall the eggs in the nest, but roll this one away and sit on it."
"Perhaps," said one of her friends, "somebody else may have laid itafter all, and not noticed. You know it is not the only one in thenest."
"Pooh!" said the Dorking Hen. "I guess I know! I am sure it was notthere when I went to the nest and it was there when I left. I must havelaid it."
The fowls went away, and she tried to roll the shiny one away from theother eggs, but it was slippery and very light and would not stay whereshe put it. Then she got out of patience and rolled all the others outof the nest. Two of them fell to the floor and broke, but she did notcare. "They are nothing but common ones, anyway," she said.
When the farmer's wife came to gather the eggs she pecked at her and wasvery cross. Every day she did this, and at last the woman let her alone.Every-day she told the other fowls what a wonderful Chicken she expectedto have. "Of course he will be of my color," said she, "but his featherswill shine brightly. He will be a great flyer, too. I am sure that iswhat it means when the egg is light." She came off the nest each dayjust long enough to stroll around and chat with her friends, tellingthem what wonderful things she expected, and never letting them forgetthat it was she who had laid the shiny egg. She pecked airily at thefood, and seemed to think that a Hen who was hatching such a wonderfulChicken should have the best of everything. Each day she told some newbeauty that was to belong to her child, until the Shanghai Cock fairlyflapped his wings with impatience.
Day after day passed, and the garden beyond the barn showed rows ofsturdy green plants, where before there had been only straight ridges offine brown earth. The Swallows who were building under the eaves of thegreat barn, twittered and chattered of the wild flowers in the forest,and four other Hens came off their nests with fine broods of downyChickens. And still the Dorking Hen sat on her shiny egg and told what awonderful Chicken she expected to hatch. This was not the only egg inthe nest now, but it was the only one of which she spoke.
At last a downy Chicken peeped out of one of the common eggs, andwriggled and twisted to free himself from the shell. His mother did nothurry him or help him. She knew that he must not slip out of it untilall the blood from the shell-lining had run into his tender little body.If she had pushed the shell off before he had all of this fine redblood, he would not have been a strong Chicken, and she wanted herchildren to be strong.
The Dorking Cock walked into the Hen-house and stood around on one foot.He came to see if the shiny egg had hatched, but he wouldn't ask. Hethought himself too dignified to show any interest in newly hatchedChickens before a Hen. Still, he saw no harm in standing around on onefoot and letting the Dorking Hen talk to him if she wanted to. When shetold him it was one of the common eggs that had hatched, he was quitedisgusted, and stalked out of doors without a word.
The truth was that he had been rather bragging to the other Cocks, andonly a few minutes later he spoke with pride of the time when "our"shiny egg should hatch. "For," he said, "Mrs. Dorking and I have beenquite alone here as far as our own people are concerned. It is notstrange that we should feel a great pride in the wonderful egg and theChicken to be hatched from it. A Dorking is a Dorking after all, myfriends." And he flapped his wings, stretched his neck, and crowed asloudly as he could.
"Yes," said the Black Spanish Cock afterward, "a Dorking certainly is aDorking, although I never could see the sense of making such a fussabout it. They are fat and they have an extra toe on each foot. Whyshould a fowl want extra toes? I have four on each foot, and I canscratch up all the food I want with them."
"Well," said the grumpy old Shanghai Cock, "I am sick and tired of thisfuss. Common eggs are good enough for Shanghais and Black Spanish andBantams, and I should think----"
Just at this minute they heard a loud fluttering and squawking in theHen-house and the Dorking Hen crying, "Weasel! Weasel!" The Cocks ran todrive the Weasel away, and the Hens followed to see it done. All wasnoise and hurry, and they saw nothing of the Weasel except the tip ofhis bushy tail as he drew his slender body through an opening in thefence.
The Dorking Hen was on one of the long perches where the fowls roost atnight, the newly hatched Chicken lay shivering in the nest, and on thefloor were the pieces of the wonderful shiny egg. The Dorking Hen hadknocked it from the nest in her flight.
The Dorking Cock looked very cross. He was not afraid of a Weasel, andhe did not see why she should be. "Just like a Hen!" he said.
The Black Spanish Hen turned to him before he could say another word."Just like a Cock!" she exclaimed. "I never raise Chicken
s myself. It isnot the custom among the Black Spanish Hens. We lay the eggs andsomebody else hatches them. But if I had been on the nest as long asMrs. Dorking has, do you suppose I'd let any fowl speak to me as youspoke to her? I'd--I'd--" and she was so angry that she couldn't sayanother word, but just strutted up and down and cackled.
A motherly old Shanghai Hen flew up beside Mrs. Dorking. "We are verysorry for you," she said. "I know how I should have felt if I had brokenmy two-yolked egg just as it was ready to hatch."
The Bantam Hen picked her way to the nest. "What a dear little Chicken!"she cried, in her most comforting tone. "He is so plump and so brightfor his age. But, my dear, he is chilly, and I think you should cuddlehim under your wings until his down is dry."
The Dorking Hen flew down. "He is a dear," she said, "and yet when hewas hatched I didn't care much for him, because I had thought so longabout the shiny egg. It serves me right to lose that one, because I havebeen so foolish. Still, I do not know how I could stand it if it werenot for my good neighbors."
While Mrs. Dorking was talking with the Bantam by her nest, the BlackSpanish Hen scratched a hole in the earth under the perches, poked thepieces of the shiny egg into it, and covered them up. "I never raiseChickens myself," she said, "but if I did----"
The Shanghai Cock walked away with the Dorking Cock. "I'm sorry foryou," he said, "and I am more sorry for Mrs. Dorking. She is too fine aHen to be spoken to as you spoke to her this morning, and I don't wantto hear any more of your fault-finding. Do you understand?" And heruffled his neck feathers and stuck his face close to that of theDorking Cock. They stared into each other's eyes for a minute; then theDorking Cock, who was not so big and strong as the Shanghai, shook hishead and answered sweetly, "It was rude of me. I won't do it again."
From that day to this, nobody in the poultry yard has ever spoken of theshiny egg, and the Dorkings are much liked by the other fowls. Yet if ithad not been for her trouble, Mrs. Dorking and her neighbors would neverhave become such good friends. The little Dorkings are fine,fat-breasted Chicks, with the extra toe on each foot of which all thatfamily are so proud.