Scene First
The Guinea-hen, Hens, Ducks, etc.; the Pheasant-hen, the Blackbird, later Patou.
At the rise of the curtain, multitudinous clatter and confused swarming of Hens and Chickens.
The Guinea-hen
[Going impetuously from one to the other.] How do you do? How do you do?—There is scarcely room to move! My guests reach all the way to the cucumber patch!
Chorus
[Up in the air.] Busily buzzing—
The Guinea-hen
A regular crush!
A Hen
[Gazing at a row of huge pumpkins.] What attractive objects!
The Guinea-hen
Art pottery! Rather good of its kind, if I do say so!
A Chick
[Listening with his bill in the air.] Singers?
The Guinea-hen
Yes,—
Chorus
Busily buzzing—
The Guinea-hen
[In her sprightliest manner.] The Wasps! [To a Chicken.] How do you do? [She flits from one guest to the other.]
The Wasps
Busily buzzing
Estival glees.
Fill we with murmurs
The mulberry trees!
The Pheasant-hen
[Passing with the Blackbird and laughing.] So you were caught?
The Blackbird
[Finishing his story.] Exactly as if a hat had been plumped down over me. But I managed by beating my wings to throw off the beastly pot. [Looking around him.] Chantecler has not come yet?
The Pheasant-hen
[Surprised.] Is he coming?
Patou
[Suddenly appearing on the wheelbarrow, from whence he can watch the scene as from a pulpit.] I still hope he may change his mind.
The Blackbird
Patou there, in the wheelbarrow?
Patou
[Shaking his surly head, and a bit of broken chain hanging from his collar.] Chantecler told me everything Blackbird, as he went by. In a towering rage I broke my chain, and am here to keep an eye on the wicked lot of you.
The Guinea-hen
[To the Blackbird.] Has he invited himself to my party, that moth-eaten old thing?
Chorus
[Among the trees.] Our praises, Sun, our praises!
The Pheasant-hen
[Looking upward.] Music?
The Guinea-hen
The Cicadas!
Chorus of Cicadas
We simmer in thy gaze,
We bask beneath thy blaze,
Receive our grateful praise!
The Young Guinea-cock
[Low and quickly to his mother.] Tsicadas, mother. You must pronounce it Tsi!
A Magpie
[In black coat and white tie, announcing the guests as they arrive through a hole such as Chickens dig at the foot of hedges.] The Gander!
The Gander
[Entering, jocularly.] What’s all this fuss and feathers my lady? Our names called as we enter?
The Guinea-hen
[Demurely.] Yes, you see, expecting some rather great people, I thought it well to stand an usher at the blackthorn door.
The Magpie
[Announcing.] The Duck!
The Duck
[Entering, impressed by the elegance of the occasion.] Here is style and grandeur indeed! Our names called!
The Guinea-hen
Yes, you see, expecting some rather great people—
The Magpie
The Turkey-hen!
The Turkey-hen
[Entering, after a supercilious glance.] This is quite more of an affair, my dear, than I was anticipating.—Names called!
The Guinea-hen
Yes, I had in the Magpie to supplement my usual staff.
Chorus
[Among blossoming branches.] Boom! Boom!
From bloom to bloom!
The Turkey-hen
[Lifting her bill.] A Chorus?
The Guinea-hen
[Breezily.] The Bees!
Chorus
Make distant flowers
Bride and groom!
The Turkey-hen
Wonders on every side!
The Guinea-hen
The Bees here, the Tsicadas yonder—[To a passing Hen.] How do you do? How do you do?
Bees
[At the right.] Boom!
Cicadas
[At the left.] Our praises!
Bees
Boom!
Cicadas
Our praises!
The Guinea-hen
[To the Pheasant-hen.] My garden produces the most remarkable of everything!
The Young Guinea-cock
The brightest flowers!
The Guinea-hen
The big potatoes!
The Blackbird
And peaches! Perfect peaches!
The Pheasant-hen
[Inconvenienced by the movement and the crowd, to the Blackbird.] Let us stand out of the crowd a moment, behind this watering-pot.
The Blackbird
The watering-pot, alias the Intermittent Baldpate, so called because there flows from his copper scalp when he is tilted a marvelous growth of silver hair.
The Guinea-hen
[Spying the Cat, who, outstretched along an apple-bough is watching with half-closed eyes.] I have among my guests the Cat.
The Blackbird
Tomkyns de Tomkyns! [A Bird is heard warbling in a tree.]
The Guinea-hen
I have the Chaffinch!
The Blackbird
Let him chaff inchworms, what care we?
The Guinea-hen
The Darning-needle!
The Blackbird
She shall mend up Ragged Robin, now’s his chance!
Patou
[More and more disgusted.] All that is supposed to be funny!
The Guinea-hen
[Pecking a cabbage leaf from which roll drops of dew.] I have the Dew!
Patou
[Grimly.] Your witticism for her?
The Blackbird
[Brightly.] Fresh-water pearls!
The Guinea-hen
[Pointing out several Chicks walking among the crowd.] Have you seen them? I have several of the A.i.’s Chicks!
The Pheasant-hen
A.i.?
The Guinea-hen
The Acme Incubator.
The Pheasant-hen
Oh, have you?
The Guinea-hen
[Presenting the Chicks.] All from the topmost compartment!
The Pheasant-hen
Indeed?
One of the Chicks
[Nudging his neighbour.] She is dumbfounded!
The Guinea-hen
[Contemptuously.] Eggs hatched by the old vulgar method, fie!
The Blackbird, Good Lord, exempt us!
The Magpie
[Announcing.] The Guinea-pig!
The Guinea-hen
It’s the famous one, you know! The Guinea-pig who was inoculated—surely you remember the case—very well, that’s the one! There you see him. I made a point of getting him to come. Everybody is here! I have everybody! I have—[To the Guinea-pig.] How do you do? [To the Pheasant-hen.] I have our great philosopher Tur-Key—Yes, it should be written with a hyphen—who will give us a little talk among the currant bushes under the tea-roses—[To a passing Hen.] How do you do? [To the Pheasant-hen.] Educational Tea or Currant Topics! [Whirling from one to the other.] Everyone is here, everyone of the slightest mark or consequence! The Pheasant-hen is here, in a frock from fairyland. The Duck is here, who is so good as to say he will recite for us by and by. The Tortoise is here—[Noticing that the Tortoise is not there] I was mistaken, the Tortoise is not here. She is late.
The Blackbird
[Affecting deep concern.] What is the little talk she seems so regrettably likely to miss?
The Guinea-hen
[Suddenly serious.] The Moral Problem.
The Blackbird
What a pity!
[The Guinea-hen goes to the back, scattering greetings, in ecstasies of sociability.]
The Pheasant-hen
[To the Blackbird.] Who is the Tortoise?
The Blackbird
A hard old character, impervious, I fear, to moral problems, who goes in for walking matches in a loud check suit!
[Murmur among the hollyhocks.]
The Pheasant-hen
Listen, a Drone!
The Guinea-hen
[Briskly returning.] The Drone is here! In the bright light overhead, what a stylish figure of a fly!
The Blackbird
No “at home” complete without it! Ladies cry for it! Won’t be happy until—
The Guinea-hen
[Jumping up in the air toward the Drone.] How do you do? How do you do? [She follows his flight with excited leaps and hops.]
The Blackbird
[Touching his brow with his wing.] She is dotty!
The Guinea-hen
[At the back, with shrill Guinea-hen cries.] It’s my last day! How do you do? My last day until August! Mondays in August, don’t forget!
A Hen
[Seeing cherries dropping around her.] Oh, cherries, look!
The Pheasant-hen
[Looking upward.] It is the Breeze!
The Guinea-hen
[Fluttering forward again, excited as ever.] I have the Breeze, who now and then shakes down a cherry! I never ask her. She comes unasked. What’s-his-name is here! And What’s-her-name is here, and—[To the back tumultuously.]
The Blackbird
And Thingumbob, and Stick-in-the-mud! [He has arrived without appearance of design beneath the tree where the Cat is lying, and asks rapidly, under breath.] Cat, what about the conspiracy?
The Cat
[Who from his tree can see beyond the hedge.] It is afoot. I see the interminable file of phenomenal Cocks approaching, headed by the Peacock who comes to present them.
A Cry
[Outside.] Ee—yong! [The Crowd throngs toward the entrance.]
Patou
[Grumbling.] That abominable concertina cry—
The Magpie
The Peacock!
The Pheasant-hen
[To the Blackbird.] Have you a fancy name for him?
The Blackbird
[Imitating the Peacock’s cry.] Our great Accordee-yong!